Obscenity and the Publication of Sexual Science in Britain, 1810-1914 by Sarah Elisabeth Bull M.A. (English), Simon Fraser University, 2007 B.A. (English), University of Winnipeg, 2006 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Sarah Elisabeth Bull 2014 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2014 Approval Name: Sarah Elisabeth Bull Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (English) Title of Thesis: Obscenity and the Publication of Sexual Science in Britain, 1810-1914 Examining Committee: Chair: Jeff Derksen Associate Professor Dr. Colette Colligan Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Dr. Peter Dickinson Supervisor Professor Dr. Carolyn Lesjak Supervisor Associate Professor Dr. Lara Campbell Internal Examiner Associate Professor Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Dr. Lisa Z. Sigel External Examiner Associate Professor Department of History De Paul University Date Defended/Approved: ii Partial Copyright Licence iii Abstract This dissertation examines the fringe publication of medical and scientific works about sex in the long nineteenth century. It argues that these works fell into a moral, legal, and commercial ‘grey zone’ in this period between the categories of the legitimate and the obscene, and that battles over these works’ publication fostered a concomitant development of sexual science and pornography. Medical and scientific publishing were unruly fields in nineteenth-century Britain, open to many different players, including fringe publishers interested in exploiting medical and scientific eroticism. This dissertation establishes for the first time how the obscenity trade, a precursor to the modern pornography industry, comprised an important route of sexual-scientific dissemination in the period. Nineteenth-century publishers of obscenity exploited the ‘grey zone’ into which medical and scientific works about sex fell to market them as erotica, bringing them into circulation alongside explicit fiction in both the popular and elite literary spheres. Such fringe publishing activity motivated rising cultural movements to situate the legitimacy of explicit representations in relation to their contexts of publication and circulation, a paradigm that this dissertation argues had a far greater impact on both literary and scientific production than previously recognized. Examining a range of social-scientific studies, translations of Eastern works, and anonymous obscene literature, it shows how new discourses and reading practices, evolving around culturally imagined links between publication context and obscenity, encouraged cross influences between emerging social-scientific disciplines and the developing genre of pornography. The first sustained study of overlaps between scientific and obscene print cultures, this thesis provides a compelling new material and discursive history which contextualizes surprising historical intersections of science and pornography that challenge current understandings of the culture of scientific knowledge during a period associated with the medicalization of sex, and makes the case for bringing publishing history and historical methods of interpretation to bear on the historiography of nineteenth-century sexual culture. Keywords: print culture; nineteenth-century; sexuality; publishers; medical; pornography iv Dedication For Ralph v Acknowledgements Many people have contributed to this project over the years. Colette Colligan, who first introduced me to obscenity studies, was an exemplary senior supervisor. Always generous with her knowledge of Victorian obscenity and its publishers, Colette arranged opportunities for me to hone my research skills abroad, acted as a rigorous reader for the dissertation material as it evolved, and cheered me on throughout the writing process. I will always be grateful for the considerable time and thought that she put into mentoring me. The other members of my committee, Carolyn Lesjak and Peter Dickinson, provided invaluable advice and support throughout my graduate career. Their theoretical expertise greatly strengthened this project, and will continue to influence my research as it evolves. Michael Everton also made tremendous contributions to this project, generously sharing his knowledge of nineteenth-century print culture and making possible a research trip to Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in 2011, where I examined primary material that significantly shaped the direction that this project took. I am equally grateful to Lara Campbell and Lisa Z. Sigel for acting as the project’s external examiners. Their expert feedback will influence my research and writing long after this dissertation is filed. The support of the members of the English Department at Simon Fraser University made working on this project a pleasure. I am especially grateful for the close friendship of Marc Acherman, Alison Hurlbert, Erin Keating, Jennifer Anne Scott, who discussed this project with me many times over the years, helped me keep my writing on track, and delivered chocolate during the last stages of dissertation editing. Among others, Myka Abramson-Tucker, Ranbir Banwait, Livia Chan, Sarah Creel, Maureen Curtin, Alison Dean, Jeff Derksen, Alana Gerecke, Wendy Harris, Shelley Klatt, Heather Latimer, Graham Lyons, Margaret Linley, Kimberly O’Donnell, Heather Ritzer, Diana Solomon, and Nathan Szymanski also played instrumental roles as friends, mentors, and advocates over the years. Christa Gruninger, our graduate program secretary, performs wonders in facilitating graduate work in the English Department. I cannot imagine what undertaking this project would have been like without her administrative support. I am lucky to have a network of colleagues beyond SFU, whose company, in person and online, was a constant source of inspiration and affirmation as I worked on vi this dissertation. Jessica Campbell, Mark Celinscak, Malcolm Cocks, James Emmott, Jennifer Henneman, Kylee-Anne Hingston, Lise Jaillant, Tom Laughlin, Justin O’Hearn, Jillian Richardson, Andrea Ryer and Jasper Schelstraete were fine company at conferences and on research trips, engaged me in rich conversations about Victorian culture and book history, and introduced me to their local academic communities. Alan Bates, Laurel Brake, Ralf Dose, John Forrester, Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Jim Secord, Simon Stern, Lisa Surridge and Mark Turner shared specialist knowledge, provided access to primary sources that I would not otherwise have been able to view, read and critiqued my work, and assisted me with research funding applications. I am also grateful to the members of the HIST-SEX, MERSENNE, SHARP-L and VICTORIA listservs, who graciously responded to requests for specialist advice over the years. This project would not have been possible without the assistance of the kind and knowledgeable staff at the Archive of British Publishing and Printing at the University of Reading, the British Library, the British Library Newspaper Library, Columbia University Special Collections, the Harry Ransom Center, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, the Lilley Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, London School of Economics Special Collections, the Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft, the National Archives of the United Kingdom, Simon Fraser University Library, the Wellcome Library, and the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University. I am also thankful for generous financial assistance from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Simon Fraser University, the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, the North American Victorian Studies Association, and the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, which made it possible for me to undertake archival research, devote several semesters solely to research and writing, present at scholarly conferences, and develop my knowledge of book history at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School. I am also grateful for the support of the London Goodenough Association of Canada, which reserved my partner and I place at Goodenough College, a London residential college that proved an idyllic workspace during the project’s initial stages of research in 2010 and 2011. I am grateful to the editors of Victorian Review for their permission to reproduce material here from an article which appeared, in a much-altered form, in the journal’s Spring 2012 issue. I also extend my thanks to the scholars who acted as anonymous vii reviewers for that article. The advice of one of these reviewers greatly influenced my decision to focus on quackery in the second chapter of the thesis. My most heartfelt thanks go to my partner, Ralph Ball, who has seen this project through, by my side, from beginning to end. I cannot imagine contemplating such an undertaking without him, and it is to him that this work is dedicated. viii Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Partial Copyright Licence .................................................................................................. iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .........................................................................................................................