The Master Key.
Chicago, IL: The de Laurence Company, ND (Copyright 1914, 1941). Fifth printing. Hardcover. Octavo. x + 406pp. Original red cloth boards, lettered & decorated in gilt on spine, blind-stamped cross design on front board. A work by Lauron William de Laurence (1868 - 1936), renowned book pirate, plagiarist, and publisher of occult literature. De Laurence was well known for taking other peoples works and reissuing them under his own name (sometimes retitling them in the process). Oddly, The Master Key, a work on self-development through mind control and such like, appears to have been actually written by de Laurence - at least we are unaware of it being a direct copy of another work. Despite his eccentricities de Laurence played an important part in the occult history of the USA: he was was a pioneer in selling occult books and supplies by mail order, and the cheap "Pow Wow" books and other books of simple magic which he published were received with great fervor by many in the American occult community. De Laurence's publications are notoriously difficult to date, but the good quality gilt stamped cloth binding of this suggests that is the original 1941 issue (as per the copyright date) rather than a later reissue. Spine ends lightly bruised and chafed, bump to lower corner of rear board, page-edges lightly browned, endpapers unevenly browned, otherwise a clean VG+ copy in VG- dust jacket (dust jacket a bit darkened overall, one inch strip missing from upper rear panel, two small chips at edges of upper panel. Dust jacket now in removable mylar cover). Item #45203
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