Mixed Marriage

New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Very Good in Good dj. (c.1930). 4th printing (stated). Hardcover. [a good sound copy with modest shelfwear, some insect damage to the fore-edge of the front endpaper; the jacket is edgeworn, with a number of tiny chips and tears along the top and bottom edges]. This "Sensational Book on a Vital Problem" was originally published by Harper & Brothers as by an "Anonymous" author, but word seems to have gotten out almost right away -- apparently revealed by herself -- and her true identity was acknowledged even in early reviews of the book. (She was already a well-established author, with eight or nine novels to (truncated) her credit; the anonymous-author conceit was kind of a publishing fad of the day, usually employed for, well, sensational books on vital problems.) The central conflict here, per the title, involves the strains placed on an initially happy marriage by the clash between the wife's strong Catholic faith and her husband's agnositicism. (As he explains it to her: "Certain things have been bred out of my family. We aren't able to believe. We've doubted for three centuries.") The couple are devoted to each other, however, and things sail along for a time in a spirit of mutual tolerance and understanding -- but eventually (as a contemporary reviewer explained it, spoiler alert!) "the final rift comes, as might have been expected from the beginning of a novel on such a theme, when the wife refuses to save her own health and happiness by adopting means of contraception. Thus to a certain extent the book is an argument for birth control. But it is a great deal more than that, a portrayal of vigorous personalities that have found love and are tragically trying to find understanding across the void of widely different training and belief." . (Inventory #: 29803)