Potter was a friend of Henry Spencer Ashbee, a merchant, bibliographer, bibliophile, authority on the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes, and collector of erotic materials.
Also in the holdings of the British Library is Letters from India during H. R. H. the Prince of Wales visit in 1875–6, from William S. Potter to his sister, which dates from 1876.
For example, the Library of Congress catalog record for the 1968 Grove Press edition of The Romance of Lust includes the brief note: "Attributed to Capt.
Ashbee comments that, "The Romance of Lust is not the produce of a single pen, but consists of several tales,'orient pearls at random strung,' woven into a connected narrative by a gentleman, perfectly well known to the present generation of literary eccentrics and collectors, as having amassed one of the most remarkable collections of erotic pictures and bric-a-brac ever brought together.
The character 'Mr Chambon' in the anonymously authored The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism may be based on Potter, who was a friend of its publisher William Lazenby.