Andr Couvreur's Human Seed, (1903) was one of the most shocking works of its era, one that attempted more fervently than any other to push back the boundaries of the conventionally-unmentionable, such as contraception, abortion and eugenics, illustrated through the lives of the eighteen children of the Grignon family, afflicted by the ongoing social disasters of syphilis and alcoholism.
It will seem to many contemporary readers to be...