Nell Gwyn was an illiterate actress who became the beloved mistress of Charles II, gave birth to a duke and slept in a bed made of silver. But although she was praised for her wit and beauty by the diarist Samuel Pepys and showered with luxuries by the king, she never learned to read and write.
She is thought to have owned one book, however, and the “erotically charged” illustrated pop-up book, printed in London in 1675, is expected to fetch between £15,000 and £20,000 at auction next month.
The book, a copy of Johann Remmelin’s A Survey of the Microcosme, invites readers to undress the naked bodies of men and women by lifting flaps to reveal their “veins, nerves, muscles, bones, sinews and ligaments”.
First published in 1613 in Germany as an anatomy textbook for surgeons and sculptors, the 1675 edition in English is so rare that only six are known to exist. It was donated to the Royal Society of Medicine in 1842 and has been in its collection ever since.
The book’s publisher, Joseph Moxon, created a unique, hand-coloured version for Gwyn, who sold oranges in Drury Lane theatre before finding fame on the stage and attracting the attention of the king.
“A book specifically linked to Nell is astonishingly rare,” said David Taylor, professor of English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. “She had this remarkable rags-to-riches journey from orange-seller to leading actress, and then all of a sudden she’s the king’s mistress, pregnant with his children and catapulted into a life of astonishing luxury. But she was known to be illiterate and I think that’s part of what’s going on here. She is being given a book which she can interact with and understand, because it’s a picture book as much as anything else.”
No book owned by the celebrated courtesan has ever come to market before, according to Christie’s, which is auctioning the pop-up on 10 December. In fact, the auction house has found no evidence that Gwyn even possessed another book.
“It’s very possible that this will be the only chance ever to own a book that Nell Gwyn owned,” said Mark Wiltshire, a specialist in printed books at Christie’s.
Few English readers would have encountered a pop-up book before, and it is likely Moxon was hoping to “build a bit of a buzz about it” by presenting a copy to Gwyn, Wiltshire said. He added: “It is in some ways comparable to sending a luxurious gift basket to some social media influencer. It’s a way of getting the word out.”
The publisher inscribed the book with a handwritten dedication “to the most excellent Lady Madam Ellen Gwyn” on a bespoke, specially printed dedication page, where he printed the words: “...presuming this piece of curiosity may be acceptable to a lady so well accomplished and so excellently ingenious as yourself, I present this to your fair hands.”
Taylor said the clever dedication can be read purely as flattery, but that “talking of Nell as a lady so ‘well accomplished’ and so ‘excellently ingenious', it’s hard not to see a wink there”.
Women at the time did not generally have access to anatomy textbooks and it is highly unusual for a publisher to dedicate such a book to a female reader: publicly, the book was dedicated to Pepys.
“The specificity and the privacy of this dedication, in this copy alone, feels mischievous and risque,” Taylor added. “The moment Nell’s name is attached to this book full of naked people being revealed and undressed, it’s impossible not to read it differently. It’s a book that suddenly becomes erotically charged through its connection with Nell.”
Moxon, he added, must have been hoping Nell would show it off at her parties and at court, and share the book with the king, the father of her two sons, to amuse him: “The king enjoyed Nell’s company, not least because she tended to be different from his other more high-born mistresses - she didn’t have the same polish, she was mischievous, she was irreverent and the king liked that.”
In 1678, Moxon became the first tradesman to be elected a fellow of the Royal Society. “Moxon is a man on the make,” Taylor said. “He is clearly making a play for favour here, which is also a sign of just how powerful Nell Gwyn was seen to be at a time when the king was often criticised for being controlled by his mistresses.”
Just as Gwyn’s association with the book hints at a different reading of its pages, the existence of the book hints at a different side to Gwyn - one that has rarely been displayed before. “It allows us to see Nell in a different light,” Taylor said. “It helps us see her not just as a mistress or as a woman who used sex to improve her life, but also as a curious woman who sought knowledge and wanted to learn, even though she was illiterate.”
Photographs by Getty Images, courtesy Christie's