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Weiser Antiquarian Catalog #93 is now available, featuring works by and about Aleister Crowley

Be sure to have a look at Weiser Antiquarian’s new catalog #93, featuring books by and about Aleister Crowley, at: http://weiserantiquarian.com/catalog

About this new catalog, Weiser writes:

Weiser Antiquarian Books is pleased to announce the release of the ninety-third of our on-line catalogues. Being number 93 it really had to be an Aleister Crowley catalogue, and a rather special one at that. For the most part the catalogue contains material from the collection of our longtime friend and customer, the late Nicholas Bishop-Culpeper (1942-2011), although it also includes works from several other collections, including those of Helen Parsons Smith, Wilfred Talbot Smith and others.

The books in the first section are all from the Bishop-Culpeper collection, and without doubt comprise the most comprehensive collection of biographical and autobiographical works pertaining to Crowley ever to be offered in one place. What makes them particularly special is that many of the books are signed, inscribed, or include letters from the author(s) or other related ephemera. Of particular importance is a proof copy of the 1969 Symonds and Grant edition of Crowley’s Confessions, that is inscribed by John Symond’s and with his manuscript corrections, and accompanied by a large and significant archive of related letters. The books in the second section are also all from the Bishop-Culpeper collection, and are mainly literary and other memoirs, all of which contain some reference to Aleister Crowley. The mainly first-person accounts in these works provided valuable source materials for many of the biographies in the first section, and some of them are quite rare, and took Nick many years to track down.

The third section of the catalogue is devoted to Crowley rarities, and comprises a mixed collection of books and ephemera. The most outstanding item would have to be a complete original typescript of Liber LXXI, …that is Crowley’s rendition of Mme. Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence and Commentary, with numerous manuscript corrections and insertions in Crowley’s handwriting. Other fascinating ephemeral items include a prospectus for The Equinox of the Gods with a few holograph annotations by Crowley, a receipt in Crowley’s handwriting for a copy of the rare Bagh-i-Muattar which he borrowed in the hope of republishing it, and a manuscript address list, in which Crowley has written the names and address of over 60 friends and acquaintances – including his own. Rare books in this section include a superb, signed and numbered copy of the white buckram edition of Konx om Pax; a scarce review issue of the black-bound issue of the same work; the hand-made paper edition, limited to 50 numbered copies, of The Winged Beetle; and a presentation copy of Crowley’s The High History of Good Sir Palamedes inscribed by C. Stansfeld Jones to Wilfred Talbot Smith. Also of great rarity are the Helen Parsons Smith reissue of the Karl Germer edition of The Vision and the Voice and a first edition, with original prospectus and errata sheet loosely inserted, of the Germer edtion of Magick Without Tears. The final selection contains some Crowley Curiosities, books that are in one way or another related to Aleister Crowley, although their relevance is not always obvious at first glance.

As often there are too many interesting items to detail in a short overview like this, but there are some genuinely important and unusual pieces throughout the catalogue, and we recommend that those interested scrutinise it carefully.