Twenty-nine Issues from "The Scientific Man: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science"; "Man, Scientific Supplement"; "Mnn; A Weekly Journal of Progress and Reform.".

First edition. Folio (8 5/8 x 12 3/4 inches). Twenty-nine issues from three of his periodicals. Illustrated. 8 pp. per issue. Bound in contemporary half brown morocco-grain cloth over marbled boards. One issue with an old substance masking out 4 lines of text, boards a bit rubbed and spine with three very short splits. Overall, a very good compilation of journals from this influential American freethinker and bookstore owner.There is no doubt a reason for this assemblage but we were not able to divine it. Their order of appearance is not sequential and there is no overriding theme to all these issues. Of the first title there are 22 issues, of the second there are 4 issues and of the third there are 3 issues. Asa K. Butts was a man ahead of his times and he suffered because of it. He was a publisher, a bookstore owner, and an activist and the works he published often addressed controversial or non-mainstream topics for the era. Examples include: Scientific Feeding by Prof. Alexander Wilder. an influential holistic advocate and a Theosophist; The Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship by Sha Rocco; Nathaniel Vaughan: Priest and Man by Frederika Macdonald. He also held Annie Besant in high regards (although mainly for her feminist beliefs) and published the first American edition of Besant's seminal work on birth control, The Law of Population, in 1878. A year later he published her famous Marriage As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be. Butts was a primary distributor and publisher for Besant?s secularist and freethought writings in New York during her "National Secular Society" phase. On the whole, the majority of lead articles in these journals was a serious article on some scientific subject such as "Modern Discoveries in Sound" by Thomas H. Core and Prof. Thorpe's article on Joseph Priestly life and chemical discoveries. He was very active politically as well. In Issue No. 34 of Man (included herein) the cover story is "Proposed Organization of the National Liberal Party." It had three goals; to bring politics home to the people; to introduce women into politics and "To avoid the excitement and loss of time incident to politics." It is no small wonder that he went bankrupt in 1874, albeit for a short period.Each issue has one long article and two or three much shorter ones, All issues contain ads for Butts' Wakefield Earth Closet, an early indoor toilet that used ash and fine dirt to cover odors.He is most assuredly best remembered by Walt Whitman scholars as the person who most helped Whitman in his time of need. Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" had a difficult birth. Mainstream publishers repeatedly refused to handle "Leaves of Grass" due to its controversial nature. This forced Whitman to act as his own publisher, printer, and distributor, dealing directly with typesetters and binders, often at his own expense. To compound the issue, at that time copyright protection was basically nil and many publisher's started issuing pirated editions of Whitman's works. Asa K. Butts was the one honest bookseller that Whitman trusted and in the early 1870s, Butts served as an agent for Whitman's self-published books, including Leaves of Grass and Democratic Vistas. When Whitman felt he was being cheated Butts was instrumental is finding him an attorney that would help him. And correspondence from late 1873 shows Butts acting as a go-between for Whitman, helping to resolve issues with other booksellers (such as O'Kane) and settling outstanding bills with printers in Boston. We can find no instance of any of issue of these three periodicals appearing in the trade or at auction.…