and horror from murder down has free rein even in the university presses, "It is almost time to stop apologizing for sex." (351) (Perhaps the author has had more influence than he knows as a considerable number of the ultramodern novels show no noticeable noticeable reticence. As an illustration of his point, I have noticed that it would be worse to the intensely religious folks, even impossible, to show the genitals on a crucifix than the most horrible suffering and death, which causes no reaction whatsoever.)

It is a curious provision of nature that a million seeds are provided for one to germinate, a million spermatazoa for one egg to be impregnated. No male can ever be completely satisfied. The fiercest fights of the animal world occur between males competing for the favor of the female. Thus one may seek the motives for erotica collecting and even bibliophily of which The Horn Bock is so notable an example. While the author recognizes that many collectors of erotic books and pictures "seem touched eccentricity or sexual abnormality" (101), there is a large group of "collectors of taste and intelligence" (101) who do not limit themselves exclusively to erotica but make it a part of a wholly legitimate and broad interest

with

in book collecting. Many French collectors, for example, were high grade scholars or talented amateurs who have made a real contribution to the world's culture. Few people will want to read The Horn Book as a mere recreational exercise, but it is a must for scholarly collections and may offer a new type of interest to those of intellectual bent who may find in it a source of satisfaction to the imagination which they did not know existed. The serious study of folk tales and materials, folklore in general, is not for mere hobbyists or would-be amateurs or even for the superficial theses and dissertations of seekers for degrees. There is needed "long and far-reaching study and patient research." (254) And the insight to interpret the meaning of reams of research detail. The rewards, however, are great. The author concludes:

"Sexual folklore is, with the lore of children, the only form of folklore still in uncontaminated and authentic folk transmission in the Western world... (One is) in the presence of what isfor all its barbaric and sometimes dirty tatterdermalion-the central mystery and the central reality of life." (288)

Thomas M. Merritt

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