Sexual Inversion - (Annotated)

By: Havelock Ellis

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“Sexual Inversion” was the first English medical textbook on the topic of homosexuality. The book became a part of Ellis’s six-volume “Studies in the Psychology of Sex.” Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds agreed to collaborate on a new study that would combine Symonds's historical analysis on homosexuality with Ellis's experience with medical and scientific theory. Symonds died in 1893 before the book was concluded. “Sexual Inversion” was first published in German in 1896 (Leipzig, by Georg H. Wigand's Verlag) entitled “Das Konträre Geschlechtsgefühl,” under Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds. Ellis further revised the text and edited several of Symonds's contributions, with almost every page being rewritten or enlarged. This is the third edition. About the Author: Born in Surrey, England, in 1859, Havelock Ellis was considered by the overwhelming majority of critics as the best translator of “Germinal,” Émile Zola`s masterpiece. Ellis was a social activist, a physician and a psychologist, whose best-known works concern sexuality and criminology. In 1890 he published “The Criminal,” a remarkable work on criminal anthropology; in the same year he wrote “A New Spirit,” a collection of literary essays on Diderot, Heine, Whitman, Ibsen, and Tolstoi, and Ellis’s attempt to synthesize science and religious mysticism; and in 1898 he wrote “Affirmations,” which contains essays on Nietzsche, Casanova, Zola, Huysmans, and St. Francis. In 1897, he published “Sexual Inversion,” the first medical text in English about homosexuality, which he had co-authored with John Addington Symonds (see short bio below) in an earlier edition, and which became a part of Ellis’s six-volume “Studies in the Psychology of Sex.” Havelock Ellis died in Suffolk, England, in 1939. About John Addington Symonds: John Addington Symonds was born in Bristol, England, in 1840. He was an English poet, an author of several works, and a literary critic. In 1873 he wrote “A Problem in Greek Ethics” (also published in the Immortal Literature Series), which discussed homosexuality between men. He printed ten copies in 1883, before effectively publishing the book in 1901. He was also known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as for his translations and biographies. He wrote “Our Life in the Swiss Highlands” (1891), biographies of Philip Sidney (1886), Ben Jonson (1886) and Michelangelo (1893), several volumes of poetry and essays, and a translation of the “Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini” (1887). John Addington Symonds died in Rome in 1893. In 1896, Havelock Ellis published, in German, prepared with the collaboration of Dr. Hans Kurella, “Das konträre Geschlechtsgefühl” (Leipzig, by Georg H. Wigand's Verlag), later revised and published by Ellis as Sexual Inversion—the first medical text in English about homosexuality, which he had co-authored with Symonds, and which would become a part of Ellis’s six-volume “Studies in the Psychology of Sex.”