The History of a Soul. An Attempt at Psychology.
London: The Equinox, 1910. First Edition - First Issue. Hardcover, Octavo. viii + 296 pp (+ 2 pp advertisements for Crowley's Equinox publishing house). Green cloth, gilt title, etc. to spine and front boards. Edition limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies of which this is Number 77 (although far fewer were actually issued - with a part of that number being reused in a later issue). Raffalovich was one of Crowley's closest friends and disciples until the inevitable falling out. Crowley thought highly of Raffalovich's literary work, which he praised in his "Confessions" and published regularly in "The Equinox" series, as well as separately under his Equinox imprint. The book appears to be an autobiographical novel, and the printed dedication by Raffalovich is obviously to Crowley: "To my Master, I inscribe this the record of the early life of a future Magus ...." Crowley reviewed the work in "The Equinox, Vol. I, No V (March 1911) writing: "This admirable study of a modern temperament, a thoughtful and generous mind at sea in the whirl of these new forces, so difficult to understand at all, so impossible to rate at their real value is a monument of our late colleague’s earlier manner. The book is almost as abstract as Kant, more ab-stract than Erewhon. Mr Raffalovich when he wrote this had not that lightning flash, the concentration of infinite light into a single lucid symbol, which distinguishes his later work. The light is calm and cool. If I had to compare this book to another, I should select one of Jane Austen's; and if it is pointed out that I have never read any of Jane Austen's I can retort that neither have I read 'The History of a Soul'." Crowley published "The History of a Soul" in this edition under the Equinox imprint in 1910 , but it seems that the it didn't sell very well, and the stock was passed to the publishers Francis Griffiths in 1913 (presumably when Crowley was low on funds), who then pasted an imprint label with their own name, address, and the year 1913 over that of the Equinox on the title page. Most copies seen are of this later issue, and this first issue is genuinely scarce. From the library of English bibliophile and Aleister Crowley scholar Nicholas Bishop-Culpeper (1942-2011), with his book-label neatly tipped in at the rear. Cloth lightly rubbed, corners and spine ends bruised & lightly chafed, several tiny tears at upper end of spine, spine a bit sunned, endpapers moderately foxed, contemporary owner's name in pen on front endpapers, one sentence underlined in pencil - otherwise clean. Overall a solid, better-than VG copy (no dustjacket - none issued). Item #39737
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