It is not the first time the words of the explorer and diplomat Sir Richard Burton have caused uproar in Britain - his translation of the Kama Sutra was banned in Britain until 1963.
But now, more than a century after the eccentric author's death, his notorious 'blood libel' book is at the centre of a row that is splitting the Jewish community.
Burton's anti-Semitic treatise, Human Sacrifice Among the Sephardine or the Eastern Jews, is due to be sold at Christie's in London on Wednesday after being locked away for 92 years.
News of the auction has outraged many prominent British Jews because the work has been put up for sale by the organisation at the centre of Judaism in the UK, the British Board of Deputies.
The manuscript's contents, including the central claim that Jews once performed ritual human sacrifices, are considered so offensive that a campaign has been launched this weekend to stop the sale. Those involved fear the work will fall into the hands of American fascist groups who have expressed interest in owning it.
Yesterday the influential Orthodox rabbi Irving Jacobs called on his north London congregation to consider pooling funds to buy the work to keep it from neo-Nazis.
'The sale is a real blunder,' he told The Observer. 'I was horrified to hear of this and, although I don't want to impede genuine scholarship, I believe something like this should not be in the public domain.'
Christie's has given the book a reserve price of £200,000 and describes it anodynely as 'one of a few substantial autograph manuscripts by Sir Richard Burton remaining in private hands'.
'I am appalled and gobsmacked by what the board are doing,' said Geoffrey Alderman, an academic who has seen the original document. 'Nearly 100 years ago, the board went to a lot of trouble to get this work to suppress it. The decision to sell it now amounts to a betrayal of world Jewry.'
Alderman, who wrote Modern British Jewry, is upset that the board hopes to buy its first London property with the help of this 'dirty' money.
'The board has no funds,' he said. 'It can't afford its premises in New Oxford Street and so it has to move. But the Anglo-Jewish community is not a poor one and it seems extraordinary to use this document in this way.'
His view is supported by Professor Colin Holmes, the author of Anti-Semitism in British Society, who, like Alderman, is one of only a few academics to have seen the document.
'The book is bound to go to the States to one of the fascist groups that admire Burton's views,' he said. 'The sale has already caused a lot of unpleasant activity on the internet, for instance on David Irving's website.'
Neville Nagler, director-general of the board, claims that the manuscript is now no more than a 'historical document' of interest only to scholars of Burton.
'We always anticipated this move would be criticised,' Nagler told The Observer. 'It is true we cannot afford the rent on our central London premises and that the sale may help us with a deposit on our first property, but this is not driven by our finances.
He added: 'Only a handful of people have seen it, but most agree it is an important document for those interested in Burton.'
Nagler confirmed the work was bought up in 1909 to prevent its publication, but he argues that its value as a negative tool for anti-Semites has lessened over the years. Alderman, however, remembers the manuscript as potent and bigoted. 'It was terrible to see these things written in English, especially by an intelligent man such as Burton,' he said.
'When I first tried to read it for research, an enormous number of obstacles were put in my way by the board. I was subject to a great deal of abuse and was told details of its contents must never be released.
'If the board has to do this now to survive, then perhaps it would be better if it went out of existence,' added Alderman.
Burton's 1877 work gives a lurid account of the arrest and acquittal of 13 Jews accused of the ritual murder of a Capuchin friar in 1840, an event that became known as the Damascus Blood Libel.
vanessa.thorpe@observer.co.uk
