Dr. Jacobus X

This is a privately printed, limited circulation collection of stories and anecdotes relating to the corporal discipline of young people as an incentive to learning, and of clerics who are guilty of transgressions within the disciplinary code of their religion. Its purpose is clearly the erotic stimulation of readers. Much of the volume is a reprint of 'Experiences of Flagellation – A Series of Remarkable Instances of Whipping Inflicted on Both Sexes', written by 'An Amateur Flagellant', in which the preference for details of chastising females emerges clearly. The book would have been popular in the market which arose in Victorian times, for erotic material published in Paris. It is not of particularly high quality, as might be expected of a market suppressed in England, and driven underground by the short-sighted legislation then in existence in that land.… (mere)