Christie’s, the celebrated auction house in Paris, has scheduled for May 11th a substantial collection of curiosa. The noteworthy collection includes the pornographic illustrations from both low and high brow sources, which includes illustrated editions of Heinrich Von Kleist, the Comte de Lautréamont, and the Marquis de Sade.

The wonderful and often quite funny book collecting blog, BOOKTRYST, has a enlightening post highlighting the exhibit, as well as attempting to answer the core question at hand: Just what difference is there between erotica and curiosa?

Stephen J. Gertz writes:

Early in my career I specialized in sex-oriented literature. I’ve studied it going on thirty years now. So, when I was reading through the Christie’s catalog my head snapped back when I saw “Curiosa.” It’s not a word one comes across very often these days. It’s a throwback to an earlier era. I was amused. I suspect the cataloger was amused when he/she used the word. To those below fifty years old it’s a “Huh?”

So, what exactly does curiosa mean?

John Carter, in his classic, ABC For Book Collectors, states, “This familiar subject heading may cover anything from the risqué or gallant…to the indecent, which would be more properly listed under Erotica. It will sometimes include medical or pathological works, but these are nowadays mostly cataloged frankly under ‘Sex’ or more generally under ‘Sexology.'”

The difference here being that erotica is much more explicitly carnal in its crafting and purpose. Carter’s definition aside, most collectors and readers agree that so long as a book is not merely misguided science, then the question of whether a book is curiosa or pornography is not exactly important.

Just what titles is Christie’s offering under the curious rubric, curiosa? A first edition of Histoire d’O (The Story of O,  illustrated by Hans Bellmer, 1954); a collection of Tijuana Bibles, the sexually explicit comic books issued during the 1930s in the U.S.; Le Paysan Perverti ou les dangers de la ville (1776), Restif de la Bretonne’s  first autobiographical novel, a moral tale in epistolary format about the corrupting influence of Paris upon a peasant whose flesh is stirred; a mixed edition of Sade’s seven-volume Histoire de Juliette ou Les Prosperités du vice (“En Hollande: 1797,” i.e. Bruxelles, 1865, the final volume from the first edition of 1801-1802); a first edition of André Thiron‘s Le Grande Ordinaire (1943), illustrated by Oscar Dominguez; artist Martin Van Maele‘s Le Grande danse macabre vifs (c.1907-1908); Francis Carco‘s L’amour vénal (1926); the Bellmer-illustrated edition of Lautreamont’s Les Chants de Maldoror (1971); Dali’s Les Métamorphoses érotiques (1969); a collection of illustrations by Edouard Chimot, all explicit; etc..

Well now… That just about clears it up. It’s a bunch of smut they’re peddling at Christie’s.