The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Translated from the Sanscrit in Seven Parts with Preface, Introduction, and Concluding Remarks

191 mm x 126 mm, pp. 181, [1] - publ. adverts., printed on unmarked laid paper, white vellum parchment on bevelled boards, single-line gilt-tooled border, gilt spine lettering, gilt-tooled single-line at head and tail of spine, lower cover bordered in blind, top edge rough cut, others untrimmed. Offsetting to free endpapers, else a fine, crisp copy. As Burton could not read Sanscrit, he collaborated with his good friend, Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, and provided translations from other manuscripts of later translations. The Kama Shastra Society was a fictitious organisation consisting of Arbuthnot and Burton, a legal device to avoid the obscenity laws in place at the time. The original first edition of 1883 consisted of only 250 copies which were privately distributed.