Hardback. Cream spine with gilt title and black figures. Black cloth boards.

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For conditions please view our photographs. First edition, a rare limited edition.Bound in decorative brown cloth with gilt rules and gilt titles at spine. The book is clean , tight, and square. According to Sigmund Freud, Bloch’s studies were instrumental in the development of the anthropological approach to the theory of sexuality.

Warning: This book was part of the erotic library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold Lang, along with medical friends and family involved in Freudian research. Sexual instincts or drives have deeply hidden roots in the unconscious mind. Instincts act by giving vitality and enthusiasm to the mind through meaning and purpose. The range of instincts is in great numbers. Freud expressed them in two categories. One is Eros, the self-preserving life instinct containing all erotic pleasures. While Eros is used for basic survival, the living instinct alone cannot explain all behavior, according to Freud. In contrast, Thanatos is the death instinct. It is full of self-destruction of sexual energy and our unconscious desire to die. The main part of human behavior and actions is tied back to sexual drives. Since birth, the existence of sexual drives can be recognized as one of the most important incentives of life. The enclosed book was part of this research. A photograph is enclosed, should you seek further details please contact Martin Frost on martin.frost@gmail.com 

Iwan Bloch (8 April 1872 – 21 November 1922), also known as Ivan Bloch, was a German dermatologist, and psychiatrist, psychoanalyst born in Delmenhorst, Grand Ducal Oldenburg, Germany, and often called the first sexologist.

Together with Magnus Hirschfeld and Albert Eulenburg, Bloch is known for having proposed the new concept of a science of sexuality (Sexualwissenschaft) or sexology. In 1906 he wrote in German the book Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur which was translated as The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization, a complete encyclopedia of the sexual sciences in their relation to modern civilization.

He is also known for having discovered the Marquis de Sade’s manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom, which had been believed to be lost, and published it under the pseudonym Eugen Dühren in 1904. He had previously published Marquis de Sade: his life and works. In 1899 under the same pseudonym, which he used later for the publishing of more works about Sade and Rétif de la Bretonne.

Early life: Bloch came from a Jewish family. His father Louis Bloch (1846–1892) was a cattle dealer from Bassum who had a total of five children with his wife Rosa Lisette Rosette, née Meyer (1845–1921).

Legacy: According to Sigmund Freud, Bloch’s studies were instrumental in the development of the anthropological approach to the theory of sexuality. Before Bloch, homosexuality was analyzed using a pathological approach.