STOPES, Marie Carmichael (1880–1958)

Wise Parenthood: A Sequel to “Married Love”, A Book for Married People

(London: A.C. Fifield, 1918)

8vo; pp. viii, 34

Published as a ‘sequel’ to her classic Married Love, Wise Parenthood was to become a hugely popular brief account of birth control in its own right:

The origin of this book was an attempt to answer innumerable inquirers who, having read ‘‘Married Love”, approached me desiring wholesome information on a subject of vital importance to themselves and to the race. Not only these individual inquirers, but the world at large, and even the medical profession, lacked a rational, scientific and critical consideration of the details concerning the methods for the control of conception, some of which are now so widely used. (from the preface to a later edition)

Arnold Bennett provided introduction, writing that ‘The rapid progress of the idea of birth-regulation is one of the outstanding social phenomena of the time.’ For Stopes, the issue was not just about ‘family management’, but about what she termed the ‘improvement of the race’, so inevitably this vitally important work is also part of the contested history of eugenics.

Good condition: spine a little worn and fragile; light spotting to page edges and last few pages, but generally clean and bright.