Sublime of Flagellation is a late eighteenth-century flagellant fiction focusing on birching in aristocratic domestic contexts. It comprises six letters with anecdotes and verse from Lady Termagant Flaybum to Lady Harriet Tickletail. It appears to have been published originally around the same time as the other flagellant fictions printed for George Peacock and reissued in 1872 by John Camden Hotten. These books are: Exhibition of Female Flagellants, Part the Second of the Exhibition of Female Flagellants, Lady Bumtickler’s Revels, Madame Birchini’s Dance, Sublime of Flagellation, and Fashionable Lectures. Sublime of Flagellation was probably one of the last of these books to be published (in the eighteenth century) because it is not listed in the printer-publisher’s catalogue appended to Lady Bumtickler’s Revels and Madame Birchini’s Dance.

Lady Termagant Flaybum was a popular character in the late eighteenth century. She is the ostensible author of anecdotes in Madame Birchini’s Dance (the fifth volume in Hotten’s series) and she is depicted by James Gillray (1757-1815) in his print ‘Lady Termagant Flaybum going to give her Step-son a taste of her desert after dinner,’ which the catalogue in Hotten’s reprints also offers for sale (with ‘desert’ misspelled ‘dessert’). The listing of Gillray’s print in this catalogue helps date the publication of Sublime of Flagellation. Gillray’s print is inscribed with the publication date May 25, 1786. If this date is genuine, then Sublime of Flagellation was probably published some time after it. Had Sublime of Flagellation been issued before Gillray’s print, then it could have been listed in the catalogue with the print and the other works on flagellation.

Lady Bumtickler’s Revels is the third volume in a set of seven books on the subject of sexual flagellation that was published by John Camden Hotten in 1872. The other books in this series of reprints are: Exhibition of Female Flagellants, Part the Second of the Exhibition of Female Flagellants, A Treatise on the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs, Madame Birchini’s Dance, Sublime of Flagellation, and Fashionable Lectures. Hotten published this set with the facetious title ‘Library Illustrative of Social Progress.’

Lady Bumtickler’s Revels is an amusing work written in dialogue form. It has sections of prose and verse and includes a number of songs, which are set to what must have been well-known airs. It was probably written in the late eighteenth century, sometime after the publication of Exhibition of Female Flagellants, which the title page cites. The first edition was probably published by George Peacock. His edition was illustrated with a number of prints, which Hotten did not reproduce. However, he reprinted an interesting catalogue from Peacock’s edition that describes Lady Bumtickler’s Revels as a work with ‘six elegant prints, in colours,’ and lists the price as ₤1. 11. 6. This catalogue also lists for sale James Gillray’s print ‘Lady Termagant Flaybum going to give her Step-son a taste of her dessert after dinner,’ which bears the inscription 1786. The name Lady Termagant Flaybum appears in the extended titles of two of the books in Hotten’s series: Madame Birchini’s Dance… Now First Published by Lady Termagant Flaybum and Sublime of Flagellation: In Letters from Lady Termagant Flaybum.