SYMONDS, John

SYMONDS, John. The Magic of Aleister Crowley

Aylesbury and Slough, Frederick Muller Ltd, 1958.

 

 

 

£ 500

 

8vo, pp. 209, frontispiece portrait of the author plus 4 plates with photographic reproductions throughout the text. Bound in buckram over stiff cardboards with gilt lettering to spine. Original dust jacket worn and damaged along edges. Annotated by the author in red ink, who transcribed a letter that Crowley sent him concerning the collection of poems Olla, printed in 1946. As Symonds stated in his foreword to the 1991 edition of Olla, “I played a small part in the production of Olla for I read the proofs, and I urged the Master to expunge one poem which I thought in bad taste: he agreed to remove it. And I played a larger part in the sale of the work…”. References to the events mentioned by Symonds in this passage are found in the letter transcribed by hand on the half title of this copy, written by Crowley while at Netherwood, Hastings, on the 18 of December 1946.