Feminist literature and Eugenics

Webster, Jean

[FEMINIST LITERATURE / EUGENICS 1928]. [Dear Enemy]. Sevgili Düşman. [سه وكيلى دوشمان] 

Istanbul: Selamet Matbaas, 1928. First Edition in Turkish. 8vo. [2], v, [1], 395 pp. illustrated with line drawings by the author herself. Original wrappers with illustrated cover by JEAN HEE (text evenly browned on account of the paper stock, marginal water staining in last half of the text, most pronounced on lower wrapper which is chipped, spine strengthened with Japanese tissue). Preserved in a four-flap lig-free chemise with paper label. Good. Item #3828

AMERICAN FEMINIST LITERATURE IN TURKISH WHICH -- WITH ITS YOUNG FEMALE PROTAGONIST WHO COMES OF AGE MORALLY, SOCIALLY, AND PROFESSIONALLY -- INSPIRED TURKISH WOMEN IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. THE NOVEL HAS BECOME INFAMOUS FOR ITS SUPPORT OF THE EUGENICS MOVEMENT WHICH WAS OF PARTICULAR INTEREST TO THE TURKISH ELITE AND MEDICAL COMMUNITIES.

Originally published in 1915, "Dear Enemy" is set in Dutchess County, New York; in letters written by the protagonist Sallie McBride, the novel describes the life of a decidedly "modern" American woman who transforms hersef from a flighty young socialite into a strong superintendent of an orphanage (who actually works for a living). It belonged in the genre now known as "feminist literature" which became popular in the early Turkish Republic, when women gained a series of revolutionary new rights, which enabled them the enjoyment of the western 1920s lifestyle. It explores women's life choices, socialism, divorce, and eugenics, all of which were of particular interest in Turkey at that time.

In "Dear Enemy," the protagonist Sallie McBride presents anecdotal evidence in favor of eugenics theories that would restrict the reproduction of the feeble-minded, the insane, the criminal, and the alcoholic. Indeed, beneath all the frivolity of Webster's story is a serious study of orphan asylum problems, from the eugenic as well as the psychological and practical viewpoints. As a eugenicist, Webster's views were moderate, but she used her fiction to explicitly teach her readers about eugenic family studies, while implicitly supporting laws mandating involuntary sterilization or segregation (SOURCE: Karen A. Keely, "Teaching Eugenics to Children: Heredity and Reform in Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy" (in: The Lion and the Unicorn, Vol. 28, Number 3, September 2004, pp. 363-389).

The eugenics movement in the early Turkish Republic has been discussed in great detail by Faika Celik and Necmiye Karakus, who demonstrate that "the early Turkish Republican elite and medical bureaucrats discussed the significance of motherhood, marriage, hygiene, childcare, sports, and physical education to come up with a generation of citizens that would be healthy, strong, and productive. In other words, the discourse of Turkish eugenics aimed to create a healthy and robust Turkish society with a collective national identity with policies adapted from the West to both catch up with the West and prove itself against the West in the process of modernization." (SOURCE: "Degeneration Anxieties and Eugenic Contemplations in Modernizing Turkey during the Interwar Period" in: Yonetim ve Ekonomi, 2022, p. 54 note 5). NB: This Turkish translation of "Dear Enemy" was undertaken by Celaleddin Ekrem and preceded by 10 years the first published monograph by a Turkish Eugenicist, namely Ali Esat Birol's "Eugenic Practice" (Ojenik Tatbikati, 1938; see Celik and Karakus, p. 56).

The remarkable cover illustration is by Jean HEE, a French book-illustrator who is perhaps best known for "Alice au Pays des Merveilles" (Paris, 1930), Retif de la Bretonne's "Le Paysan et la Paysanne Pervertis" (1932) and Twain's "Le Prince et le Pauvre" (1936).

Worldcat lists one institutional example (Boğaziçi University Library).

REFERENCE: Özege 17881.

Price: $1,200.00