YOUNG (W[illiam]).

Model of the Prison and Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal.

TORTURE ILLUSTRATED

Constructed by W. Young, H. P. British Service. Now Exhibiting at [Cauty’s Auction Rooms, no. 80, Pall Mall], 209 Regent Street [supplied in manuscript].

First Edition. 8vo (201 x 130mm). 16pp., with five very shocking engraved plates by John Berryman showing various methods of torture. Short tear to the upper margin of the first plate (not touching the image) but otherwise a very good copy. Modern calf-backed marbled boards.

London: by James Wyness, 1829.

£1,250.00

Rare. OCLC/COPAC records copies at the BL and Penn only.

A shocking pamphlet designed to accompany an exhibition in London of a scale model of a notorious Portuguese prison showing various gruesome methods of torture.

The author, William Young, went to Portugal in 1808 and settled in the city of Leiria with his Portuguese wife. He was later imprisoned on suspicion of being a spy and held in various prisons before his release was secured by the Earl of Aberdeen. Young published his account of his time in Portugal in 1828 as Portgal in 1828…with a Narrative of the Author’s Residence There, and of his Persecution and Confinement as a State Prisoner. The present pamphlet was designed to accompany an exhibition in London of models of various Portuguese prisons designed from careful measurements and sketches taken by Young and from his conversations with other prisoners. The newspapers advertisements at the time state that Young himself would often be present at the exhibition and help to show around visitors and explain the displays.

The plates are very striking and give a powerful sense of what the exhibition must have looked like, they include a tribunal scene and various methods of torture including a man strapped to a bed with a funnel in his mouth while two deeply sinister figures pour water down the funnel. Another plate shows a man having fire drawn towards his feet and a torture method referred to as “Degradation” in which the prisoners are chained by an iron loop at the neck and forced into a painful standing posture.

The exhibition venue has been altered by hand on the title-page from Cauty’s Auction Rooms, no. 80, Pall Mall to 209 Regent Street, the site of the Cosmorama an exhibition space famous for showing images and installations of exotic places and curious people.

Stock No.
255473