Marie Stopes to Havelock Ellis

The Author's inscription reads: 'Advance Proof Copy / To Dr. Havelock Ellis / With the regards & / esteem of the author, / Marie C. Stopes / May 1936

A tremendous association copy, linking two of the most heroically dysfunctional experts in the field. The wary tone of the inscription is not accidental: Stopes felt that reading Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex was 'like breathing a bag of soot', after which she felt 'choked and dirty for three months'. She evidently overcame this initial distaste and established a slightly uneasy friendship with him. They were both followers of eugenics as well as ostensible celebrants of sex; one assumes as a result of their own experiences. Stopes' first marriage was never consummated and Ellis was effectively impotent. Stopes disowned her son (by her second marriage), mainly for marrying a woman with short-sightedness, an hereditary disorder.

First edition, inscribed by the Author on front free endpaper; 8vo; internally fine; publisher's brown cloth, slighty cocked and rubbed at extremities, otherwise very good; 282, 6 (ads) pp.