The Master Key.
Chicago, IL: The de Laurence Company, ND ( copyright 1941, actually ca. 1970s ?). Sixth Printing. Hardcover. Octavo. x + 406pp. Maroon faux leather boards, gold lettering & embellishments on spine and upper upper 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, may actually have been 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 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. The volume has the years 1914 and 1941 and "sixth printing" on the copyright pages, but de Laurence publications are notoriously difficult to date, as they were frequently reprinted without any change to the copyright data. Thus although the most recent date printed in this volume is 1941, the paper type and binding suggest to us that this is a more recent printing, probably dating from the 1970s or perhaps even later. Bottom corners bumped, causing a slight ripple to the extreme bottom tip of the text block, otherwise a tight, clean VG+ copy (no dust jacket). Item #62069
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