The Erotomaniac

By Ian Gibson

2001

First Published

3.24

Average Rating

312

Number of Pages

9H31M

Audio Length

Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834–1900) was a prosperous and respectable Victorian gentleman, a family man who counted among his many friends the celebrated adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton. But he was a gentleman with a secret—one so delicious that he rented a separate apartment to contain it. Within the well-appointed chambers of Gray's Inn, Ashbee concealed an astonishingly vast collection of erotica and pornography, thousands of volumes strong. Ian Gibson, the acclaimed biographer of Lorca and Dalí, now turns his attention to the hitherto little-known Ashbee, a man who happily supported his wife and four children but spent his spare time meticulously cataloguing such risqué titles as Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving and The Marchioness' Amorous Pastimes. And with exclusive access to Ashbee's diaries and his family's archives, Gibson has uncovered evidence that Ashbee may himself have been the author of the notorious My Secret Life—the "true" autobiography of an unnamed Victorian gentleman and his sexual adventures. With his celebrated touch for evoking both his subject and his subject's era, Gibson has created a telling and provocative portrait of a fascinating character and the no less intriguing age that made him possible.

Avg Rating

3.24

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

11%

4 STARS

27%

3 STARS

42%

2 STARS

16%

1 STARS

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Author

Ian Gibson

Author · 8 books

Ian Gibson (born 21 April 1939) is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography. His work, La represión nacionalista de Granada en 1936 y la muerte de Federico García Lorca (The nationalistic repression of Granada in 1936 and the death of Federico García Lorca) was banned in Spain under Franco. Born into a Methodist Dublin family, he was educated at Newtown School in Waterford and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin. He became a professor of Spanish literature at Belfast and London universities before moving to Spain. His first novel, Viento del Sur (Wind of the South, 2001), written in Spanish, examines class, religion, family life, and public schools in British society through the fictitious autobiography of a character named John Hill, an English linguist and academic. It won favourable reviews in Spain. Gibson has also worked in television on projects centering around his scholarly work in Spanish history, having served as a historical consultant and even acting in one historical drama. He was granted a Spanish passport in 1984.