Is Sex Necessary? Or Why You Feel the Way You Do.

THURBER, James and E.B. White [Charlotte Perkins Gilman].

$975.00

Item Number: 145591

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1929.

Early edition of this collection of satirical essays in theme with the many Freudian sexual theories published in the 1920s; from the library of writer and social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Octavo, original half cloth, frontispiece photograph of New York, illustrated with about fifty-two drawings by James Thurber. Signed and dated by Gilman in pencil on the front free endpaper below an antiquarian ownership signature which she has crossed out, “C. P. Gilman Nov. 1931.” Gilman was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate, and eugenicist who served as a role model for future generations of utopian feminists. Best known for her semi-autobiographical short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis, Gilman has written works on gender and male domination that continue to maintain their relevance in today’s society. Very good in a very good price-clipped dust jacket. An exceptional association copy.

Elwyn Brooks White was the American author behind several highly popular books for children, including 'Stuart Little' and 'Charlotte's Web.' After 'The New Yorker' was founded in 1925, White began submitting manuscripts to the magazine and was invited to join as a staff writer. White published his first article for The New Yorker that year and joined the staff in 1927, continuing to write for the magazine for nearly six decades. James Grover Thurber was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright whose works have frequently been adapted into films, including 'The Male Animal' and 'The Battle of the Sexes.' He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor, with the help of White, who also jumpstarted Thurber's career as a cartoonist in 1930 after discovering some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitting them for publication. Thurber and White collaborated on 'Is Sex Necessary" in 1929, about which White would later write, "Thurber and I were neither more, nor less, interested in the subject of love and marriage than anybody else of our age in that era. I recall that we were both profoundly interested in earning a living, and I think we somehow managed, simultaneously, to arrive at the conclusion that ... the heavy writers had got sex down and were breaking its arm. We were determined that sex should maintain its high spirits."