Fine Books & Manuscripts

[CRIME] IVES, George Cecil (1867–1950). The Classification of Crimes, Being the Seventeenth Chapter of A History of Penal Methods. [Edinburgh: Printed by R. & R. Clark], 1904. Small 4to. Contemporary half red morocco gilt, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers (spine ends a little rubbed). ADVANCED COPY (one of 30 “printed for friends”) of a chapter from the much larger edition of A History of Penal Methods: Criminals, Witches, Lunatics (1914) with manuscript additions to footnotes by the recipient of this copy and pro–German psychoanalytic lobbyist, Dr. James Burnett. –– [Together with:] 3–page autograph letter signed (“George Ives”) to Burnett, dated September 1900, discussing how “few of our country men have contributed anything towards the literature of this genre and misunderstood subject…” Ives legacy and stance, similar to that of Foucault’s reduction in criminality theory, was that of being a staunch supporter of penal reform and an early homosexual law reform campaigner– even recruiting the likes of Oscar Wilde to join his secret LGBTQ society: the Order of Chaeronea. Ives was also a friend and fellow cricket teammate to Arthur Conan Doyle and was the basis of the fictional character, A. J. Raffles– an inversion of Holmes created by E. W. Hornung; the brother–in–law to Doyle. Ives’ collection of papers and scrapbooks related to prison reform, sodomy, the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, and other topics can be seen at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.