My Secret Life was first published between 1888-1894 in 11 volumes in Amsterdam by the Belgian-born bookseller/publisher Auguste Brancart. For the next 100 years, it remained banned and considered obscene and pornographic.

The British Library has a set that it believes was published in about 1880, but "The imprint is probably false; printed in Belgium?".

No-one really knows the true identity of "Walter". But biographer Ian Gibson claims it is the pen name of one Henry Spencer Ashbee, pictured left.

Only 20-25 sets of My Secret Life were originally printed, and sold at £60 per set, an enormous sum for the times, equivalent to over £4000 ($6000) at today's prices. 

Famous People who owned My Secret Life

    * Aleister Crowley (1875?7)
      English occult writer and 'magician'
    * Harold Lloyd (1893?1)
      American silent film comedian and producer
    * Josef von Sternberg (1894?9)
      Austrian film director and Svengali to Marlene Dietrich
    * George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven
      great-grandson of Queen Victoria, brother of 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma 

Key Dates in History
?	1834	Henry Spencer Ashbee born 21 Apr 1834 in Southwark, London to Robert and Frances Elizabeth Spencer
?	1859	Walter mentions the Battle of Solferino at the start of Chapter 7. Henry would be 25 years old.
?	1862	Henry Ashbee marries Elizabeth Jenny Lavi in Hamburg, Germany
?	1863	Henry and Elizabeth Ashbee's son, Charles Robert Ashbee, born 17 May 1863 in Isleworth, London
?	1888	My Secret Life first published
?	1900	Henry Spencer Ashbee dies on 29 Jul in Hawkhurst, Kent
?	1932	New York publisher issue 3 volumes of My Secret Life before being arrested
?	1964	In his book The Other Victorians (New York, 1964), Steven Marcus makes a case that Ashbee was not the author.
?	1966	New York publisher Grove Press successfully publishes My Secret Life, 78 years after original publication in two books. The introduction by Gershon Legman suggest that Ashbee is the author.
?	1967	Pendulum Press of Atlanta Georgia publishes a facsimile of all 11 volumes of the 1888 edition of My Secret Life
?	1967	Drs. Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen write Walter. The English Casanova. A presentation of his unique memoirs. 'My secret life' (London, Polybooks)
?	1969	UK Bradford printer Arthur Dobson sentenced to two years as a "professional purveyor of filth"
?	1995	UK publisher successfully issues "Wordsworth Editions" (not in print), 107 years after original publication
?	2000	UK's Channel 4 broadcasts "Walter: The secret life of a Victorian pornographer" (10.30pm, Tuesday, 9 May 2000)
?	2001	The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee by Ian Gibson published by Faber and Faber; ISBN: 0571196195
?	2003	An extract of My Secret Life appears on the Web.
?	2004	The full eleven volumes of My Secret Life appears on the Web for the first time in 116 years. It is fully searchable too.