DEFOE, Daniel.

£350 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed: First edition, with a facsimile title page. The fullest expression of Defoe's thoughts on marriage, the treatise argues against abortion and contraception.The book was first published as Conjugal Lewdness; contemporary critics attacked the original title, and the book was reissued with a cancel title page bearing a new, more polite, title: A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed. The facsimile title page bound in this copy is photocopied from the second issue.Although Conjugal Lewdness was published anonymously, there is no debate as to Defoe's authorship of it. It was one of a series of practical divinity or domestic conduct books in which he employed innovative and recognisably novelistic techniques. "Although the dialogue form had been used in conduct books before, Defoe's was highly original in its leisurely creation of characters, relationships, and stories. Most conduct books were composed of brief essays, summary 'morals', and lists of maxims; Defoe's relatively long, developed narratives with commentary broke new ground... Defoe also broke new ground in directing his conduct book to mature readers rather than to the usual audience, those on the brink of adulthood... Conjugal Lewdness explains the purposes of marriage and condemns such things as intercourse during pregnancy" (ODNB).

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