Passionate crusader

In 1935 a panel of American academics compiled a list of the world's most influential modern books, and among the names of well-known authors -- Marx, Lenin, Einstein, Freud -- was one less well-remembered: Dr. Marie C. Stopes. Who was Marie Stopes? At a time when public discussion of sexual matters was tantamount to an admission of private depravity, Marie Stopes (a paleobotanist by training) wrote Married Love, published in 1918, a sexual manifesto that scandalized and awakened twentieth century consciousness with its precise physiological descriptions and its unblushing declaration of…