A pleasing copy of this rare, early pamphlet by Edith Ellis, the first of her lectures to be published; Edith and Havelock Ellis apparently spent their wedding eve preparing its proofs.
Edith Mary Oldham Ellis (née Lees; 1861-1916), known professionally as Mrs Havelock Ellis, was a British author and lecturer embedded in the overlapping progressive circles of fin de siècle England. A ‘New Woman’, she was a feminist, socialist and vegetarian, an advocate of positive eugenics, and, briefly, secretary of The Fellowship of the New Life (a precursor to the Fabian Society). Through the Fellowship she met her future husband, the sexologist Havelock Ellis, as well as other leading figures, including William Morris (she later lectured at Kelmscott House) and Edward Carpenter, who remained a good friend. Ellis was gregarious and well-networked across radical groups, publishing and lecturing in the UK and US, with family ties to Manchester, where she spent her (deeply unhappy) early years.
If known at all, however, Edith Ellis is likely best remembered for providing ‘Case XXXI.—Miss H., aged 30’ in her husband’s Sexual Inversion (1897). Yet, her own output was broad, comprising, alongside the pamphlets on contemporary social issues, collections of short stories (many set in Cornwall), essays on contemporary thinkers, and plays and novels, including her queer-inflected final novel, Love-Acre (1915).