Marriage and Morals

Horace Liveright, 1929. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Signed by author Bertrand Russell at top of title page in his characteristically neat hand. Russell himself credited this profoundly important and controversial work for his receipt of the Nobel Prize: 'When I was called to Stockholm, at the end of 1950, to receive the Nobel Prize, somewhat to my surprise, for literature, for my book Marriage and Morals. I was apprehensive, since I remembered that, exactly 300 years earlier, Descartes had been called to Scandinavia by Queen Christina in the winter time and had died of the cold.' In this book Russell advocates, in the wake of the advent of contraception, for a fundamental reassessment of the institution of marriage, and for rejection of Victorian notions of morality. It led to the infamous court decision that he was 'morally unfit'. First American edition in original dark navy blue cloth stamped in gilt and red (slight wear and spotting to cloth; minute puncture to spine; tiny ink name on endpaper). PROVENANCE: From the library of noted University of Washington Professor Garland Ethel, one of the subjects of a notorious anti-Communist academic witch hunt in Washington State history, with Ethel's signature on front endpaper. It is worth noting that Washington State was one of the first states to create a legislative Committee on Un-American Activities, and that the University of Washington was one of the first universities to begin investigations.