Building the Body Beautiful the Bagot Stack Stretch and Swing System by Bagot Stack (2 results)

1937 6th impression with numerous B&W illustrations; tightly bound in blue cloth with white lettering to front and spine; spine corners worn and fraying, especially top front; fore-edge corners a little bumped. Page fore-edges yellowed and palely foxed. Internally, a few discolouration marks scattered throughout; gift inscription on front paste-down; otherwise, a good, tidy copy. Used - Good. Good hardback (no dust jacket).

First edition, first impression, rare in the jacket. Mary Bagot Stack (1883-1935) founded the Women's League of Health & Beauty in 1930, which had 166,000 members across the United Kingdom by 1937. Building the Body Beautiful was published in 1931 prior to Stack's national success. Until the 1930s there had been a disconnect in the popularity and availability of male and female exercise classes. The Women's League of Health & Beauty expanded the previous limited availability of female physical culture and rejected the notion of a need for fragile domestic women. This book contains written descriptions and photographs of various exercises such as the "seal pose" and the "discobolus", the latter inspired by the ancient Greek. Stack's daughter continued to advertise her mother's exercise system which eventually morphed into the Flexercise movement. Quarto. Half-tone photographic frontispiece, 165 photos across 45 plates (19 on recto and verso). Original light bluish green textured cloth with white hessian backstrip, spine lettered in blue, title blindstamped on front cover. With pictorial dust jacket. Covers foxed and toned, extremities lightly rubbed; jacket flaps without price, as issued, nicked and rubbed, chipped at extremities: a very good copy in good jacket.