Our latest Project Gutenberg release, courtesy of the Distributed Proofreaders project, is another entry in the Multum in Parvo Library, a set of tiny chapbooks covering a variety of subjects. This particular volume, published in March, 1894, is entitled “Art of Love-Making” (which, of course, refers to the 19th century definition of “love-making,” which is to say courtship).

The book contains a seemingly random assortment of advice on romance and marriage, most of it built around ideas that seem quite foreign to the modern reader (ranging from predictably sexist assumptions about gender roles to entirely bizarre supposed correlations between physical characteristics and personality traits).

Needless to say, this book is unlikely to help you with your love life, but it does provide an interesting window into a very different time. You can read the whole thing (or download it in popular eBook formats) through Project Gutenberg.