Marie. Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Difficulties.

by STOPES

£1,200 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

‘From a Wife who Still Loves Him’ STOPES, Marie. Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Difficulties. London: A. C. Fifield . 1919. 8vo. Publisher’s maroon cloth, lettered in gilt to spine, wreath motif in blind to front board, typographic dust-jacket, untrimmed edges (partly unopened); pp. xvii, [1 (blank)], 124, [2 (publisher’s ads)], with one plate; some minor loss to upper spine (c. 13 x 13 mm) and corners of jacket, short closed tears to upper edge of front cover, some toning and a couple of scuffs, but generally a very good, clean copy; authorial inscription in ink to front free endpaper ( see below ). Sixth and enlarged edition, this copy inscribed by Marie Stopes to her second husband, Humphrey Verdon Roe: ‘Returned to the Humples, on his | first wedding day anniversary. | 16 May 1919 | From a wife who still loves him’. A notably poignant association copy inscribed early in the couple’s married life. When Stopes wrote this message, she would have been about four months pregnant. Sadly, the baby was born stillborn, probably due to complications from ‘Twilight Sleep’, then a new type of pain-relief drug used during labour. Unfortunately, her marriage to Roe broke down towards the end of the 1930s, with her husband granting her a ‘carte blanche to take a lover’ in 1938 ( ODNB ). Humphrey Roe had been instrumental in the initial publication of Stopes’ highly successful and oft-reprinted work Married Love, putting £200 towards the first English publication

• Binding: Hardcover

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