My First Thirty Years

"Thirty years ago, I lay in the womb of a woman, conceived in a sexual act of rape, being carried during the prenatal period by an unwilling and rebellious mother, finally bursting from the womb only to be tormented in a family whose members I despised or pitied, and brought into association with people whom I should never have chosen."

This is the searing opening to Edna "Gertrude" Beasley's raw and scathing memoir, originally published in Paris in 1925 but ultimately suppressed and lost to history as a banned book—until now. Only five-hundred copies were printed, very few of which made it into readers' hands, having been confiscated by customs inspectors or removed from bookshelves by Texas law enforcement.

In 1927, Beasley—a self-proclaimed socialist and staunch feminist who fought for women's rights—disappeared. Her fate remained a mystery until researchers began digging into her story. While living in London, she had been thrown out of her...