The black sheep of the book world
Although erotic literature has existed for much longer than 2,000 years and in many instances has been accepted as deserving the description of a classic work, it's never been easy to define, and it remains that way to this day as indicated by people continuing to object to this book or that in the school or public library.
The commerce in erotica -- and the fear that buyers and sellers had of being accused of propagating pornography -- led yesterday's booksellers and auction houses to refer to such material as "amatory," "curiosa," "deliciae," "facetiae," and "varia." Law enforcement had its own definitions. A British attorney general in the 1930s stated flatly that "the gratification of sexual appetite is an unsavory subject," ignoring the obvious fact that his parents must have had some kind of appetite or he wouldn't be around to pontificate about it.
Books judged erotic were banned and included such classics as "The Well of Lonliness," "Ulysses," "Pepys's Diary," "The Thousand and One Arabian Nights" and Candide's "Voltaire."
In the U.S., perhaps the most remarkable and drastic action taken against a book considered erotic was in 1907, when Dr. C. W. Malchow, president of the Physicians and Surgeons Club of Minneapolis, was sentenced to prison for selling through the mail his work,"The Sexual Life." Perhaps no other kind of books posed such risks to their authors, with the possible exception of scientific books that contradicted church dogma.
But it is perhaps the forbidden nature of erotica that has nurtured its appeal. The centers of erotica are in Europe and especially in Paris, where more erotica in the English language is published than almost anywhere else in the world. The Obelisk, Olympia, and Vendome presses have produced some 200,000 volumes of erotica a year, half of which finds its way to the U.S.
And perhaps surprisingly, libraries in varioius parts of the world, some private, some public, have managed to preserve many of the best examples of erotica, especially the unpublished material, of which there is a very great deal. The Library of Congress has some 5,000 erotic works, including many taken by various past customs seizures. The British Museum has about 20,000 volumes, and the University of Indiana (home of the Institute for Sex Research) has about 15,000. The largest collection? That would be 25,000 volumes. You'd have to go to Italy to see those. They're in the Vatican.
Source: Erotic Literature by Donald McCormick