"THE FIRST IMPORTANT ENGLISH HANDBOOK ON BIRTH CONTROL": FIRST EDITION OF STOPES' CONTRACEPTION, 1923

STOPES, Marie Carmichael. Contraception. London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, 1923. Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket. $3200.

First edition of the first British textbook on the theory, history, and provision of birth control by birth control advocate and sexologist Marie Stopes, the author of Married Love, in very scarce original dust jacket.

"As a scientist, [Marie] Stopes is still a figure of some interest. Her major claim to fame, however, rests on her work as birth control advocate and sex educator. She played a unique and essential role in publicizing contraception and making it a topic for discussion. She created a new genre of marriage manual with Married Love, a book which literally changed lives" (DNB). Though less famous than Married Love today, Contraception was similarly influential among the professional class of its time. Stopes offered medical and legal professionals the tools (and perhaps permission) to deal with contraception, popularizing the idea that contraception should no longer be taboo and that healthy, happy, desired babies were the proper outcome for British women. Her work on actual birth control devices, relied on heavily here, also changed the manner in which birth control was provided in Britain, placing control and indeed responsibility firmly in the hands of women. "The first important English handbook on birth control" (Garrison-Morton 1641.2). "One of the first factual and unemotional discussions of the subject" (Heirs of Hippocrates 2316). With an Introduction by Professor Sir William Bayliss and Introductory Notes by Sir James Barr, Dr. C. Rolleston, and Dr. Jane Hawthorne.

Book with only light rubbing to extremities, dust jacket with faintest staining and light rubbing and toning to extremities. A near-fine copy.