“An invaluable resource for historians of science seeking a deeper engagement with the intellectual contexts for interwar British science. McLaren’s tremendous knowledge of the era’s literary sources allows readers to take a deep dive into the interwar British elite’s hopes and fears about the impact of modernism and the rapidly developing
scientific knowledge and technology on human sex and reproduction.”

Isis

“Through his shrewdly original assembly of a dazzling kaleidoscope of 1920s and 1930s texts by both the famous—Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, Dora Russell, Virginia Woolf— and the lesser known, McLaren interconnects eugenics, conservation, birth control, mechanization, feminism, artificial insemination, and the “ectopic” in a deep interwar genealogy of the vexing reproductive dilemmas that accompanied erotic modernism. Sometimes melancholy and often hilarious, Reproduction by Design is an indispensably erudite tour de force for understanding modern British sexualities and culture.”

Judith A. Allen, Indiana University, Bloomington

“I know of no other work on interwar Britain, or even twentieth-century Britain that brings together modernity, sexuality, technology, and the environment in quite this way. The result is extremely compelling and successful. It is certain to attract a great deal of interest from both scholars and a wider audience.”

Stephen Brooke, York University