Several accounts of the origin of the dildo have been published in Britain and elsewhere. The earliest thorough-going attempt is taken by one writer to be the "Wonderful and Edifying History of the Origin of the Godemiché or Dildo" printed at the end of an erotic work The Schoolfellows; or Young Ladies Guide to Love (London, 1830).

The account is a translation from L'Histoire merveilleuse et édifiante du Godemiché in the second part of "L'Aretin ou la Débauche de l'Esprit of Abbé Dulaurens" (Rome, 1763 and 1768).