[WOMEN] WAGNER, Dorothy

Broken Rhythm [Advance Copy]

Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1938. First Edition. Advance Issue, with "Advance Complimentary Copy" rubber-stamped to lower edge of textblock. Octavo (20.25cm); original wrappers bound into publisher's dustjacket; [10],11-477,[3]pp. Forward lean, light wear to extremities, with some vertical creasing to spine, faint foxing to text edges, with light dust-soil to wrappers; Very Good and sound.

Uncommon format of the Pittsburgh author's first novel, and one of the first works of fiction to deal in depth with the subject of artificial insemination. The novel is centered around Cindy Gaylord, a wealthy young woman whose father is murdered while carrying on an affair. Deserted by her fiancé, she grows to hate men and the way they are "degraded by the passion Nature has cursed him with..." (p.95). She attempts to manipulate the stock market in an attempt to ruin the man who shot her father; having succeeded, and added substantially to her wealth, she desires to satisfy her maternal urge through the means of artificial insemination, noting "the individual doesn't count. It's on the race that's important. I'm willing to pay the man well, if I can be sure he's American-born, of Anglo-Saxon origin. And of course, physically and mentally sound" (pp.233-234). An early fictional treatment of a controversial topic; the first reports on human artificial insemination originated from Guttmacher (1943), Stoughton (1948), and Kohlberg (1953) (cf. U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health). OCLC notes 17 copies. HANNA 3647.

Price: $400.00

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