Some time ago, someone who knew I accessed this website, asked if there were any books which had been written by eunuchs. At the time, the only ones I could think of were Victor Cheney's, which aren't in most libraries or bookstores. I later realized that both Abelard and Origen must have written books or had collections of their writings published as bound volumes. But those were the only ones I could think of. However, considering the number of eunuchs who had some education and held responsible positions in Byzantium, imperial China, and elsewhere, it would seem that there might be books available from the past, which were written by eunuchs, and which might even discuss eunuchism. Does anyone know of any works of that kind? I must admit that I have never read anything by either Abelard or Origen, and have never seen any of Cheney's books.

There are a number of writings on ethics and theology by both Origen and Peter Abelard. Both refer to their own castration in some of their works.

Another eunuch writer was the great Chinese historian Ssu-ma Ch’ien (born about 135 BC). His Shih Chi is the first historical work of modern type and was the model for most later Chinese historians. He made extensive use of state and private archives, of old historical and philosophical books, inscriptions, and the results of his own travels and interviews. It is a brilliant work of research and writing.

Since my Italian is nonexistent, I’ve been trying to find something translated into English/French/German/Spanish by one of the Italian castrati. I know that there were some writings by them, such as Filippo Balatri’s Frutti del mondo, which includes the line, “I am young, Italian, and castrated and seek my glory only through singing.” [as quoted by Valeria Finucci, in her book The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance (Duke University Press, 2003), page 225]

There are at least two singing textbooks written by 18th and 19th century Italian castrati singers, who became singing teachers. As a natural soprano castrato myself, I read and use them, among other textbooks etc.. These two are: "Observations On The Florid Song" (1743) by Pier F. Tosi, translated from the original Italian; and "Mr Tenducci's Instructions To His Scholars" (1785), by Giusto F. Tenducci, published in English from London, where Tenducci spent many years in England and Ireland. (He even married an Irishwoman!). I have a modern reprint of the former, and a photocopy of a copy of the latter in the British Library in London. In addition, the famous textbook by Manuel García, "Complete Treatise On The Art Of Singing" (1847, originally published in French in two volumes, which I have), had large parts "ghostwritten" by the famous operatic castrato Giovanni-Battista Velluti.

I have scanned the first two (and will be scanning the other) to ZIPped PCX files, and uploaded them to rapidshare.de, from where they can be downloaded. The links to the pages for downloading them are:-

Your file 'ObservationsOnTheFloridSong-PFTosi_Wilcox-1743_.zip'

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Your file 'InstructionOfMrTenducciToHisScholars_Longman-1785-PCX_.zip'

(10802116 Bytes) is being hosted.

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In addition, I have uploaded these other singing textbooks, and vocal exercises and scores, and the recordings of the last classical Italian castrato, Alessandro Moreschi (1902 & 1904), on which the copyrights have expired, and which would be also of use to any other singing castrati on this forum; further titles are being scanned, and will be uploaded in the future:-

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The links are to downloading pages, from which the files may be downloaded by pressing either of two buttons, "free" or "premium", at the bottom, to bring up the actual downloading link. Because they expire from the server if they have not been downloaded for 30 consecutive days, list members should download them as soon as possible. Downloading is free, but to download more than 20 Mb of files (or more than one file if over 20 Mb) in one hour, or to use a download program like Getright, or to download more than two files at once, one has to purchase a "premium account" for a very small fee.

I have bought such a "premium account" for the minimum 10 Gb of unrestricted downloads, of which I have about 7 Gb remaining. Because any unused balance of it expires on 8 January 2006, I have decided to share the rest of my balance with the forum. Here are details of my "premium" account to use for unrestricted downloads:- log-in name: 29325 ; password: 7490516 . To use it, press the "premium" button (instead of the "free" button) at the bottom of the downloading page, and enter this log-in name and password into the boxes provided, then press the button to bring up the

actual downloading link.

To find out more about both the classical Italian castrati and us modern castrati, join the following Yahoo email groups through http://www.yahoo.com :-

castratiandcountertenors, castrati_history, castrati_worlds.

I am also on these other singing-related groups:-

treble2, Voices_Of_Angels, sopranosguild, coloratura, coloraturaaudioclips.

As i am not a singer, im am more interested in books by or about eunuchs, be it ficion, historical,political etc.There should be some of these out there somewhere. The singing books are fine, but i can t carry a tune in a bucket