The World's Tragedy.
Phoenix, AZ: Falcon Press, 1985. First Edition Thus. Softcover. Octavo. xl + 114pp. Illustrated covers. Hyatt's memorial paean to Israel Regardie on first page. The World's Tragedy was originally privately printed in Paris in 1910 in an edition of 100 copies, but most copies of this play were destroyed in a customs seizure or seizures, on account of the frank discussion of homosexuality in its Preface. The play itself was a work which Crowley particularly valued, writing in his Confessions that "This is beyond all question the high-water mark of my imagination, my metrical fluency, my wealth of expression, and my power of bringing together the most incongruous ideas so as to enrich my matter to the utmost. At the same time, I succeeded in reaching the greatest height of spiritual enthusiasm, human indignation, and demoniac satire." Regardie writes: "This long, almost epic poem/play is one of the most bitter and vicious diatribes against Christianity that I have ever read. Especially the preface written by Crowley also. Crowley's hatred of Christianity was not a blind unreasoned prejudicial emotion. It was indelibly rooted in his own personal experience, amplified and added to by extensive study and research all throughout his adult years." Light rubbing to covers and chafing to edges and corners, otherwise a tight clean VG+ copy. Item #59540
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