Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Havelock Ellis, editor, critic, essayist, and pioneer sexologist, was born on February 2, 1859 in Croydon, Surrey. His father was a sea captain and rarely at home, so Ellis's mother was the dominant influence in his early life. She was an ardent evangelical Christian who had experienced a conversion at the age of 17, but Ellis early on slipped away from the more rigid aspects of her faith. He was provided with a basic education in private schools in south London, but his main education derived from wide reading. The crucial formative influence was his stay in Australia for four years from the age of 16. Here, in the outback, in almost total isolation, he began to experience conflicts in his awakening sexual life and in his spiritual outlook. Born in the year of the first publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species , Ellis was a child of a new scientific optimism, unattracted to a religious world outlook which he saw as dying, but repelled by the absorption of science into a chilly utilitarianism. It was in this state of mind that he reread a book by James Hinton, a writer on political, social, religious, and sexual matters, entitled Life in Nature (1862). The book sparked a spiritual transformation. In particular, for the young Ellis, the belief that sexual freedom could bring in a new age of happiness helped direct him towards the scientific study of sex. To prepare ... log in or subscribe to read full text