CROWLEY, Aleister.

The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1. [ "The Blue Equinox" ].

Detroit, Michigan: Universal Publishing Company, 1919. First Edition. Hardcover. Quarto. 308 + 132pp. (+ viii pp adverts.) Original blue buckram with red eye in triangle design on front board, red titling etc. to front board and spine. Color frontispiece portrait of Crowley by Leon Engers Kennedy, and color reproduction of Crowley's painting May Morn, with original captioned tissue guards, plus 5 black and white plates. Rubricated title page. Crowley was the editor and principal author of most of the "The Equinox" series, which contained a variety of poetry, fiction, and reviews - generally with esoteric themes - alongside a number of articles of occult instruction. The "Blue Equinox" - as this number became known - was arguably the last of the "real" Equinoxes to be published during Crowley's lifetime. He continued to use the volume and number designations of the Equinox series after this, but for what were effectively separate monographs, quite different in most respects to the original journals. This volume includes five black and white photographic portraits, as well as color reproductions of Crowley's painting "May Morn" and the color portrait of him by Leon Engers Kennedy. The text comprises a number of magical books ("Libers") amongst which Liber LXV, Crowley's Gnostic Catholic Mass, the publication of which caused considerable outcry and calls for the "Blue Equinox" to be banned, as well as providing inspiration to James Branch Cabell who adapted part of it for use in his equally-contentious, but best-selling novel, "Jurgen." Blavatsky's "The Voice of Silence" with Crowley's commentary to it are appended as a "special supplement" and other texts include Crowley's "Hymn to Pan," various book reviews, etc. etc. From the collection of English bibliophile and Aleister Crowley scholar Nicholas Bishop-Culpeper with his book-label neatly tipped in at the rear. Cloth lightly rubbed, spine faded and mottled (as common with this volume) and somewhat concave. Corners bumped, all extremities a little rubbed, pages lightly toned. Small bookshop label of the "Libraire de Sciences Occultes" - the shop of the famous Dutch bookseller W. N. Schors - affixed to front pastedown, rear endpapers lightly foxed, otherwise a tight, clean VG+ copy. A solid, tight, internally clean, VG+ copy (no dust jacket issued). Item #39450

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