Hoyer (Niels, pseud. Ernst Ludwig Harthern-Jacobson) Man into Woman.

An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex
London, Jarrolds, 1933.

First edition in English, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.

Drawing on diaries, dictated material, and letters left by Lili Ilse Elvenes (1882–1931, known publicly as Lili Elbe and born Einar Wegener), this is the first full-length narrative of a subject who underwent genital transformation surgery, making it a keystone work on transgender history and the history of sexology. ‘Niels Hoyer’ is the pseudonym of Ernst Ludwig Harthern-Jacobson, a friend of Elbe’s who compiled the text in accordance with her wishes after her death. In 1930, Einar Wegener entered Magnus Hirschfeld’s celebrated Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin, before undergoing a series of four surgeries performed by gynaecologist Kurt Warnekros. The Jarrolds first edition includes an introduction by the prominent London-based sexologist Norman Haire. The book was reissued in 1953 and again in 2004, and has most recently been the subject of a full comparative scholarly edition (2020). Elbe’s life inspired David Ebershoff’s novel The Danish Girl (2000), itself providing the inspiration for the 2015 film of the same name, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Eddie Redmayne; an opera based on her life, Lili Elbe, by Tobias Picker premiered in 2023. The Jarrolds edition is the first English-language edition and is considered highly collectable; copies with the original dust-jacket are genuinely rare.

The travel writer Jan Morris, who chronicled her own transition in Conundrum (1975), has stated that reading Elbe’s story directly inspired her to pursue surgery.