Microforms: Major Sets by Subject: Engineering, Science, Statistics

Microfilm. Series 1: The books and manuscripts of John Dee, 1527-1608

Part 1: Based on the holdings of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and offers 63 manuscripts once in Dee's Library. These include 13 manuscripts of the works of Roger Bacon; Dee's diary, 1586-1601; a copy of Thomas Norton's Ordinall of Alchemy bound in purple velvet and earlier texts of writers such as Alkyndi and Albumazar; works of Terence and Alexander; 3 texts of Euclid's Elements; sanit's lives; and other works by Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Bede, Boethius, Hermes Trismegistus, Ptolemy, Ramon Lull, Lydgate, George Ripley, and other writers.

Part 2: Based on the holdings of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and offers a further 71 manuscripts from Dee's Library. These include medical texts, works on the spheres and on spirits, romances, saint's lives, commentaries, grammars, alchemical receipts, and texts on astronomy, geometry, music theory, numerology and rhetoric. There is also an almanac by Dee, one of his commonplace books and, 3 letters from Walsingham to Dee. There are works by authors as diverse as Aegidus, Albumazar, Bernard of Clairvaulx, and Albert of Saxony. We also include a printed miscellany owned by Dee that is now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Part 3: Based on the holdings of Cambridge University Library and offers 40 printed volumes and one manuscript text. Most of the printed volumes were produced in Basle, Koln, Paris and Venice. None are in EEBO. Authors include Averroes, Georgius Benignus, Diogenes Laertius, Dionysius Areopagita, Hermes, Henricus Herpf, Pomponius Gauricus, Rasis, Johannes Tritheimius, and John of Vienna. Neoplatonism is well represented, and there are three Hebrew texts.

Part 4-6: Parts 4-6 of this project focus on the European printed books which were once part of John Dee’s Library. They are full of interesting annotations and marginalia. The annotations reveal much about Dee's interests, his reading habits and sometimes they even give details of particular events in Dee's life, nativities and other occurrences. They also inform our understanding of general reading practices and the management of knowledge in the Renaissance period. Places of publication include Antwerp, Basel, Brescia, Frankfurt, Ingolstadt, Lyon, Paris, Rome and Venice.

Subjects covered range across many disciplines:

Alchemy
Philosophy and Theology
History of Rome
History of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Africa, and the Holy Roman Empire
The Turks and the Ottoman Empire
Geography and Exploration
Women
Latin and Greek Language, Classical Culture and Literature

Microform. Sex and Sexuality seeks to make available a broad range of rare printed texts describing changing attitudes towards sex and the body.

Part 1: Covers 61 texts from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Wellcome Institute in London. It offers:

Medical works on the body, sex, and venereal diseases, including Aristotle's Masterpiece (1690) and Tissot's A New Guide to Health and Long Life (1808).
Writings on sexual habits, such as Bienville's Nymphomania (1775) and accounts of James Graham's 'celestial bed' through which electrical currents were passed in order to give couples 'superior ecstasy'.
Works on masturbation from Onania (1729) to Tissot's A Treatise on the Crime of Onan (1766).
Advice literature on sex such as Thomas Beddoes' Hygeia (1802-3) and H H Allbutt's The Wife's Handbook (1886).
Material concerning prostitution, including William Acton's Prostitution considered in its moral, social and sanitary aspects (1857) and Michael Ryan's Prostitution in London, with a comparative view of that of Paris and New York (1839).
Writings on the sociology of sex from George Drysdale's The Elements of Social Science; or Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion (1861) to Richard von Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1892)
Part 2: Was the direct result of discussions with Terry Castle and Emma Donoghue to offer material describing the whole spectrum of same sex relations between women from romantic friendship to lesbian couples. We offer 65 texts covering:

The treatment of classical writings by Sappho, Juvenal and Ovid - the way in which their texts were translated tells us a lot about changes in attitude towards homosexuality.
Historical accounts describing sexual practices in Turkey and the 'Orient' including works by Rycaut, Tavernier, Poussin, Hamilton, and Bourdeille.
Works on uranism, lesbianism and homosexuality by Xavier Mayne, Raffalovich and J A Symonds.
Literary treatments of female same sex relations including Jean Barrin's Venus in the Cloister (1683), Jane Barker's The Lining of the Patch-work Screen (1726), and Eliza Haywood's Cleomira (1722) and Cleomelia (1727).
A full range of works by John Cleland - including The Dictionary of Love (1753), Memoirs of a Coxcomb (1885) and Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1888) - depicting every type of sexual relationship.
Writings by Diderot (including Les Bijoux Indiscrets and La Religieuse); Barbara Montague (A description of Millenium Hall); Eliza Jeary (Marina and Amelia); Charlotte Lennox; Elizabeth Steele; Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos; Elizabeth Rowe; Nicholas Chorier (Satyre sotadique); and others.

Part 3: Based on the incomparable Private Case collection at the British Library. Our Consultant Editor, Professor Brad Mudge, from the Department of English at the University of Denver has selected 164 key works which will be of interest to scholars of literature, history, art, medicine and sexuality. Part 3 includes:

The Cabinet of Venus Unlocked (1657-58) by Sinibaldus (Giovanni Bendetto).
L'escole des Filles (1668) by Michel Millot.
Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony (1683).
Fifteen Plagues of Maiden-Head (1707).
Treatise on Hermaphrodites (1718) and The New Epicurean (1740).
Therese Philosophe (1748) by Jean-Baptiste Argens.
Errotika Biblion (1783).
Justine and Histoire de Juliette (1794) by the Marquis de Sade.
La Masturbomanie (1830).
The Exhibition of Female Flagellants (1860).
The Merry Order of St Bridget (1868).
The Romance of Lust; or, Early Experiences (4 vols, 1873-76).
The Boudoir: A Magazine of Scandal (1883)
The Autobiography of a Flea (1887) and The Whippingham Papers (1888)

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