Aurea Catena Homeri. The Golden Chain of Homerus.
San Francisco, CA: Sapere Aude Metaphysical Republishers, 1983. Limited edition. Hardcover. Octavo. (viii) + 108 (+ 164pp facsimile of manuscript) Brown leather with gilt titling to spine, and boards. All edges gilt, marbled endpapers, orange satin page marker. Black and white and color facsimile illus. of the original alchemical diagrams. Edition limited to 550 numbered copies. A magnificently prepared facsimile of a manuscript transcription of "Aurea Catena Homeri," by Anton Joseph Kirchweger, an important alchemical work that was first published in German in 1723. The great London-based Rosicrucian and alchemical scholar Sigismund Bacstrom translated the work into English, and this translation was eventually eventually acquired by W. Wynn Westcott, who in turn passed it to Percy William Bullock (Frater Levavi Oculos, 1867-1943?) a stalwart of the original Golden Dawn (for a time he was Cancellarius of the Isis-Urania Temple). Whilst still in the G.D. Bullock made a copy of "Aurea Catena Homeri" so as to make it available to "any member of the Second Order" working "towards the elaboration of the Lapis Philosophorum, the 'perfect perfection.'" Bullock was one of a small number of initiates in the Golden Dawn: including Florence Farr, Edward Berridge, and William Alexander Ayton who took a great interest in alchemy. Amongst those who had access to Bullock's alchemical collection was Leonard Frank Pembroke, who in 1930 made a copy of Bullock's manuscript of the "Aurea Catena Homeri." Pembroke, a Theosophist who in later life moved to South Africa, "had a reputation for producing exquisite alchemical manuscripts" (a number of which are in the collection of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam). In addition to the text of the original manuscript, which included Bacstrom's comments, Pembroke also included a two page Introduction by Bullock: "Remarks by [L]evavi [O]culos Fra.[ter] R. R. et A. C." The manuscript is reputed to have been made by Pembroke as a Christmas gift for a friend who had been a member of the original Golden Dawn or one of its offshoots. The original went through various hands, and was sold by Weiser Antiquarian Books to a private buyer in 2009. This facsimile was published in a limited edition of 550 copies (50 of which were hors commerce) in 1983. One small flaw in the leather of the back cover (obviously in the hide originally), a very light scrape to the front board, still a lovely tight, clean VG+ copy. Item #58942
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