Woman and the New Race - Margaret Sanger Inscribed Association copy to Maurice Newfield, Later Edition

Woman and the New Race - Margaret Sanger Inscribed Association copy, Later Blue Ribbon Books Edition, c. 1920 A notable association copy of Sanger's first book inscribed to the prominent English birth control advocate and eugenicist Maurice Newfield - "To Maurice - This was my first book on the subject which was then a confined interest in woman's spiritual progress & BC (assumed birth control). Love as ever, Margaret Sanger" Red cloth stamped in black, blue topstain, frontis. portrait of Sanger and her children, pp. [2], i-vi, vii-xi, [3], 1-234, [6] VG- book, binding slightly cocked, some dampstaining to rear board near joint and fore-edge, some toning to endpapers else internally clean; in a like condition jacket, lightly soiled with damp stains and color bleed to rear panel, chipping to head of spine and fore-edge corners, 1/2" closed tear to head of front panel Margaret Sanger was the foremost leader of the birth control movement who founded the first birth control clinic in the United States and the organization that would become Planned Parenthood. This copy highlights Sanger's complex association with the eugenics movement. While scholarly consensus supports her rejection of eugenics beliefs along racial and class lines, Sanger's endorsement of certain beliefs and policies tied to eugenics such as limited involuntary sterilization remain a stain on her legacy. Maurice Newfield (1893-1949), was a physician and long-time editor of London-based The Eugenics Review. He published an influential book in 1928 outlining contraceptive methods under the pseudonym of Michael Fielding titled Parenthood: Design or Accident? A Manual of Birth Control with a preface by H. G. Wells, for whom Newfield briefly served as a private physician. He also served as the second honorary director of the Birth Control International Information Centre, a London-based clearinghouse for birth control information established by Margaret Sanger and British suffragist Edith How-Martyn. It supported the establishment of clinics and maternity advice centers abroad, sponsored lecture tours and a conference. Sanger wrote the following tribute in the Eugenics Review following Newfield's passing in 1949 - "In the death of Doctor Maurice Newfield, on August 13th, I949, the Eugenics Society and the birth control movement have lost a distinguished leader and an uncompromising and fearless defender of their theories and objectives. Despite his physical frailty, his ever-willing spirit never once refused to respond and those of us who knew him and loved him looked to him always for guidance because of his courageous, liberal views. Maurice Newfield was a man of wisdom, humanity, tolerance and understanding, and his entire life was devoted to truth and social justice. To those of us who knew and loved him, there remains only the consolation that Maurice Newfield lived the good life to its fullest spiritual capacity and the influence of such a life carries on. I shall miss him, as will all his many American friends." Robert Graves also wrote of Newfield in the same publication - "Once my neighbor Agatha Christie came to supper and I sat back happily while he put her through a highly technical cross-examination (from which she emerged with high marks) on the subject of drugs suitable for undetected murder.".…