MSE Library displays rare literature on love

The Johns Hopkins Special Collections team, led by Outreach Coordinator Heidi Herr, hosted Dirty Books and Longing Looks, a Valentine’s Day-themed showcase of rare books, on Wednesday in the Reading Room of the Milton S. Eisenhower (MSE) Library. The event featured a broad range of books, magazines and manuscripts dating as far back as the 13th century.

“Since this is a Valentine’s Day event, the books are all on the theme of love, branching from... sweet 19th century sentimental fads to 18th century debauchery,” Herr said.

Wei-Shi Lin and Jess Fong, both undergraduate students at Hopkins employed by Herr in Special Collections, had prepared for the event by decorating the Reading Room with library-themed valentines and raunchy quotes. In addition, the two helped Herr collect the books and arrange the displays.

“Once they’re up here,” Fong said, “we just go through them and flag the pages we think are interesting.”

Senior Lindsay Kiernan was a fan of the exhibit.

“It’s exciting to see that these things have stayed for so long, and so many people have read them, so many hands have touched them, and [now] we’re getting the chance to!” Kiernan, a student studying within the English and Writing Seminars Departments, said.

Along with saucy content, many of the books featured included intricate illustrations. One in particular, entitled Les Amours de Jules, documented in striking illustrative detail the affairs of the fictional French man Jules.

“A lot of these are just... beautiful to look at, and it’s really cool that they’re on display. It’s not even just the content of them, but the books and the physical manuscripts themselves are just beautiful,” senior Florence Noorinejad said after browsing the collection.

Equally fascinating were the stories behind the books themselves and the vibrant characters who put them on the page. One such example, which Herr pointed out as one of her favorites, was a rare specimen of 18th century pornography written and illustrated by Baron d’Hancarville.

“This was basically an uneducated man who made a life for himself,” Herr said. “He ended up being friends with Thomas Jefferson, and he was involved in all the famous salons of the 18th century.” His vibrant past is immortalized in his work.

“He was often inclined to getting into debt and stealing treasures from his friends, who were all French dukes,” Herr said.

According to legend, he would fund his luxurious lifestyle by issuing pornography, evading obscenity laws by claiming the images in his books were taken from Greek and Roman vases.

“It turns out they weren’t,” Herr added. “All the images are from his perverted mind.”

“It’s really exciting to see what we have. I never would have thought we had all this,” Kiernan said.

Another example, a particular favorite of Lin’s, was a scrapbook that was compiled by a young woman named Lilian Sorey between 1895 and 1896. This massive tome includes everything from candy wrappers to a list of boys Sorey hoped would invite her to her high school prom.

“When you come into a research university, a place like Hopkins, you know intellectually that there are a lot of resources available to you,” Noorinejad said, “but you don’t really understand what that means necessarily. You don’t really know what our library collection looks like and why it’s something that’s so reputable.”

This was precisely the sentiment that Herr hoped she would be able to respond to when she brought a piece of Special Collections out of its cage in the basement of the MSE Library.

“It’s a little bit of everything, and it’s meant to showcase a side of Special Collections that people normally don’t think about,” Herr said. “In particular, we’re trying to encourage undergraduates to use special collections and kind of realize that we’re not the stuffy and monocled folks, that we really are a place with a lot of really cool and fun resources that are open to all.”