ABSTRACT
‘Ellis Ethelmer’ is a pen name sometimes attributed to Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, more often to her husband, Ben Elmy, and occasionally to the two writing collaboratively. The daughter of a Dissenting minister, Wolstenholme Elmy was a former headmistress and active feminist, having campaigned for women’s suffrage, the passage of the Married Women’s Property Acts and the Guardianship of Infants Act, and the 1886 repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. The Human Flower, meant for use with older children, begins with two chapters that discuss, respectively, botanical and human sexual anatomy and pro-creation. A preface explains that the pamphlet’s organization is designed to give the parent control over the extent of the child’s enlightenment. The proliferation of sexually didactic literature, much of which was aimed at the young, reveals a sense on the part of reformers that childish ignorance on delicate topics was a luxury that society could ill afford.
