It Isn't Really Porn, But We're Putting It Online Anyway

Jesse Walker | February 15, 2008

Another myth dies:

For decades generations of Cambridge undergraduates have fantasised about a secret stash of Victorian pornography in the university's library tower.

Many have tried to gain access to the chamber to uncover its illicit secrets. So intrigued was Stephen Fry by the collection that he wrote about it in his first novel, The Liar....

But now it seems all their efforts have been in vain.

For all that is contained within "this magnificent erection", as Neville Chamberlain is said to have described the 1934 tower, are distinctly restrained guides on the finer points of Victorian romantic etiquette....

The university has made the disclosure because it is in the process of putting all the titles online.

Well, we'll always have the Vatican.

Comments

|2.15.08 @ 11:02AM|#

The Vatican? Who wants a punch of kiddie porn?

ed|2.15.08 @ 11:10AM|#

I just died a little inside.

|2.15.08 @ 11:21AM|#

"Victorian romantic etiquette...."

Sleep with cousin. Repeat.

|2.15.08 @ 11:25AM|#

Darn, I was hoping to peruse some porn while being able to proclain it was valid historical research. Oh well, I can always fall back on the well tested sociological excuse.

|2.15.08 @ 11:33AM|#

"I can see her knees!"

D.A. Ridgely|2.15.08 @ 11:55AM|#

"I can see her knees ankles!"

Fixed.

|2.15.08 @ 11:57AM|#

Well, there's classics too - the Romans in particular produced some first-class literary smut. Why do you think Victorian men learned Greek and Latin?

|2.15.08 @ 2:27PM|#

D.A. --

Ankles = Soft core
Knees = Hard core
Thighs = Hot, raw girl-on-girl oil orgy action

A Finnish reasonoid|2.15.08 @ 3:49PM|#

Haha the snopes piece makes it sound like Father Boyle has an enthusiastic interest in the collection.

"Despite searching long and hard.."
and
"When I first came here, I asked an inhabitant who had been around the Vatican longer than anybody else about whether this famous pornography actually existed"