Synopses & Reviews
Review
"In the first four or five decades of this century, preachers and assorted moralists invoked the name of Havelock Ellis as the symbol of sexual license and decadence. Ellis wrote on what he called the 'psychology' of sex, and in the course of his work he challenged the Victorian obscurantism that had ruled so long in intimate relations between people. He himself was a strange bird: incapable (or so it seems) of normal relations with women, he thrived on urolagnia, and he married a lesbian. A friend of Margaret Sanger, he became far better known in the United States than in his native Britain. He never met his great contemporary, Sigmund Freud, but the two men exchanged a couple of letters and photographs, and each recognized the other's contributions to breaking the shackles of the 19th century. All this would make a great story, of course, but Ms. Grosskurth botches it miserably. She teaches English at the University of Toronto and no doubt teaches it very well, but she had not a shred of talent as an historian. The rich material of Havelock Ellis' life is here dispersed and scattered in a miasma of disconnected trivia, unsound judgments, and blatant ignorance in the field of psychology. Ellis deserved better." Reviewed by Robert Jackson, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)