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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
It has been remarked by Professor Wilhelm Ostwald that the problem of
homosexuality is a problem left over to us by the Middle Ages, which for
five hundred years dealt with inverts as it dealt with heretics and
witches. To regard the matter thus is to emphasize its social and
humanitarian interest rather than its biological and psychological
significance. It is no doubt this human interest of the question of
inversion, rather than its scientific importance, great as the latter is,
which is mainly responsible for the remarkable activity with which the
study of homosexuality has been carried on during recent years.
The result has been that, during the fourteen years that have passed since
the last edition of this Study was issued, so vast an amount of work has
been carried on in this field that the preparation of a new edition of the
book has been a long and serious task. Nearly every page has been
rewritten or enlarged and the Index of Authors consulted has more than
doubled in length. The original portions of the book have been still more
changed; sixteen new Histories have been added, selected from others in my
possession as being varied, typical, and full.
These extensive additions to the volume have rendered necessary various
omissions. Many of the shorter and less instructive Histories contained in
earlier editions have been omitted, as well as three Appendices which no
longer seem of sufficient interest to retain. In order to avoid undue
increase in the size of this volume, already much larger than in the
previous editions, a new Study of Eonism, or sexo-esthetic inversion, will
be inserted in vol. v, where it will perhaps be at least as much in place
as here.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
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