A mega fan’s first hand account of receiving plastic surgery from an unlicensed surgeon named Charles Henry Willi who popularized cosmetic beauty procedures in London beginning in 1910 and continuing successfully until 1961 when he retired to Saint Tropez with a small fortune.

Margetson details her own experience and also interviews 42 patients and their cases, which are documented with photographic illustrations.

Fascinating insight into how plastic surgery, a field that grew in wartime, pivoted to find a client base using a feminist message of empowerment and tapping into a patriarchal culture’s internalized sexism and misogyny.

Margetson believes surgery is a must-do treatment in reaction to the “systematic beauty culture” and needs of the career woman.

London: Methuen & Co, 1936. vii, 69 pages. 19x13x1cm. First edition. Hardback. Price-clipped jacket, minor loss to top of jacket, very good book in very good jacket.