My Life

Abstract

HERE we have the life-story of one who, with many other literary and cultural achievements to his credit, will be known above all as the man who made it his chief work to bring sanity into the sphere of sex and to remove those taboos which had hitherto kept sex so largely outside the pale of impartial scientific thought. This autobiography is no mere product of the author's declining days; it is the fulfilment of a project formed in early life, a project that, like all his other enterprises, came slowly but steadily to fruition, being written at what he judged to be the most favourable moments from the age of forty onwards. Ellis indeed held autobiography in high esteem; it was his view that “of all forms of prose, outside the limits of imaginative art, there is no other form so precious in its nature and so permanent in its value”. There can be little doubt that the book does well and truly fulfil its author's purpose. Although it is unlikely that it will ever be considered one of the world's very few imperishable monuments of self revelation, it yet provides a sympathetic and illuminating picture of a delicate, sensitive and philosophic being, who was willing to accept himself with the capacities and limitations that Nature had provided, and who understood well how to reconcile himself to his limitations and to make the most of his capacities-a task that few accomplish with so good a grace and in such ample measure.

My Life

By Havelock Ellis. Pp. xviii + 542 + 8 plates. (London and Toronto: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1940.) 15s. net.