£75
FIRST EDITION, small 4to, pp. 47, [1]. Original brown paper wrappers, front cover lettered in gilt. Some spotting. Wrappers detached, edges chipped and creased, some small losses to spine, sometime neatly repaired with glue. A few faint pencil marks.
The first edition of the third pamphlet in a series published with the Labour Press by socialist writer and early gay activist Edward Carpenter (1844-1929). The first three titles, 'Sex-Love, and its Place in a Free Society', 'Woman, and her Place in a Free Society', and this one, were all published for public circulation, while the fourth, 'Homogenic Love, and its Place in a Free Society' was privately distributed. Carpenter argues here for the advancement of women's rights, stating that current law 'as in actual marriage... still leaves woman uncertain as to her rights over her own body, or in politics, where it still denies to her a voice in the framing of the laws which are to bind her', and he declares 'As true Freedom cannot be without Love, so true Love cannot be without Freedom' (pp.34-35).
