1st US treatise on birth control: R. D. Owen 's Moral Physiology, two early editions. 1847 & 1875

[CONTRACEPTION]. - Robert Dale OWEN (1801-1877). Owen’s Moral physiology; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question. Third edition, with alterations and additions, by Ralph Glover, M.D. New York: published by R. Glover, 1847. Small 12mo signed in sixes (5 7/8 x 3 ¾ inches; 149 x 95mm). Pp. [i-]vi-xix[-xx; 21-]22-180. Half-title. 3 wood-engraved plates. (Some spotting and toning). Original green diaper-grained cloth, covers paneled in blind, titled in gilt on the upper cover, the spine blocked in gilt. 

[With:] Robert Dale OWEN (1801-1877). Moral physiology; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question. By Robert Dale Owen. … Tenth edition, with notes by the Publisher. Boston: published by J.P. Mendum at the Office of the “Boston Investigator”, 1875. 12mo signed in sixes (7 3/8 x 4 5/8 inches; 187 x 117mm). Pp. [i-]iv; [5]-6-88; [i-vi, including 1 plate and two blank leaves].  Wood-engraved frontispiece and one plate at the end of the text.  Half-title. 3 wood-engraved plates. Original brown cloth, covers paneled in black (upper) and blind (the lower), titled in gilt on the upper cover, brown glazed endpapers (head and foot of spine and corners somewhat rubbed and bumped). Provenance: Jas. H. Fountain (of Elmira, NY, early inscription).

Nice copies of the enlarged ‘third’ edition, along with the 1875 ‘tenth’ edition  of ‘the first American treatise on birth control’ (Norman Himes). Dr. Glover uses Owen’s work to advocate the latest method of contraception: ‘Electro-galvania’.  There ‘was public discussion of the merits of contraception in 1828-33 in [the U.S.]…, the leaders being … Owen, Frances Wright and Charles Knowlton, M.D. Owen, eldest son of Robert Owen… was led to  defend in print the importance of discussing the subject of …[Robert Carlile’s pamphlet Every Woman’s Book; or, What is Love. London: 1825]. Abuse heaped upon Owen induced him to defend his views on birth control in a pamphlet Moral Physiology, published in New York late in 1830. Being popular, it … went through several editions… The early American and English editions are scarce.’ (N.E. Himes “The Rarissima of Birth Control” in The Colophon… Part 20. [1935]). (2)