London: J. How, 1684. First edition. Duodecimo (145 x 90 mm), pp. [iv], 190, [14]. Woodcut frontispiece, six illustrations in text. Contemporary sheep, recased and relined, smooth spine unlettered, covers ruled in blind. Housed in a black cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. Two initial blanks detached and preserved in acetate pocket, early 20th-century pencil annotations on these two blanks and underlining on a couple of internal leaves. Small paper restoration on first leaf, chips and short tears in margins, one corner torn with loss of catch word, some minor marginal spots and light damp stains. A very good copy.

First edition of the first sex manual written in English, for centuries the most popular compendium on conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. Complete copies are rare in commerce, we traced only four in auction records. Aristotle’s Master-Piece “provided a kind of sex education to the masses long before the concept of sex education was invented” (Fissell). The text is composed of excerpts from Leviinus Lemnius’s The Secret Miracles of Nature (1658) and Jacob Rüff’s The Expert Midwife (1637). It was probably attributed to Aristotle to lend authority, based on his popular-culture reputation as a sex expert from the 1595 English publication Aristotle’s Problems. The contents highlight the importance of mutual sexual pleasure for conception, valuing it for both men and women, and delve into infant health, covering topics such as the signs of pregnancy, how to differentiate between false labour and true labour, and the various positions in which the baby may present.

More than 250 editions are known and it was still for sale in the 1930s in Soho sex shops; James Joyce’s protagonist Leopold Bloom peruses an edition of the book in Ulysses. Although “it was not intended as pornography, its frank discussion of sex and reproduction was seen as unfit for polite society; the book was often issued under false imprints and sold 'under the table'” (Norman). An early 20th-century pencil annotation in this copy testifies to the book’s continued popularity, containing four lines from an erotic poem: “A maidens prayer. Put youer (sic) arms around me darling, kiss my cheeks and I blush, tickle me until I tremble”.

The woodcut illustrations depict hairy women, conjoined twins, and “monstrous births”, such as a creature with “four feet, eyes, mouth, and nose like a calf”, a “monster half man and half dog”, and a “man-child” born in Germany with four arms and legs. They were copied from the English edition of Ambroise Parè’s Workes (1634), which included his Des monstres et prodigies. In the manual, abnormal births are attributed to the parents’ sexual extravangance, misbehaviour, or negative mental state.

ESTC lists 3 variant settings of the first edition, with no established priority. They can be distinguished by the title pages: this is the variant with line 11 ending in “both” and line 18 ending in “Ge-”. We traced less than 20 copies of the first edition in institutions, at various degrees of completeness. (Item #7955)