LELAND, Charles Godfrey .

Have You a Strong Will? or, How to Develope [develop] and Strengthen Will-power, Memory, or any other Faculty or Attribute of the Mind, by the Easy Process of Self-hypnotism.

London: Rider and Co., 1912. Fifth Edition. Hardcover. Small octavo, xxxii + 300pp, (ii), 16pp publisher's catalogue. Original red buckram with gilt device on upper board and spine, in-text line illustrations, top edge gilt. American born Charles G. Leland (1824-1903), a linguist and folklorist who moved to England in 1870. There he learned to speak the Romany language of the Gypsies, and was accepted into Gypsy circles, who freely shared their knowledge of traditional with him. He went on to publish several books on the subject, as well as other works on ethnography and folklore, and his known book "Aradia: Gospel of the Witches." The present work is somewhat of a departure from his other writing, being primarily as "self-help" text dealing with will-power, mesmerism and hypnosis. Curiously the book was in part commandeered by occult book pirate L. W. De Laurence after Leland's death in 1903, for an American version entitled "Mystic Will" (1907). Light chafing to edges and points, spine a bit darkened with light bruising to ends, a very few small scattered pencil marks outside text - otherwise a tight, clean VG copy (no dust jacket). Quite scarce. Item #61609

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