Item #63298 Ahab and other Poems. With an Introduction and, Count Vladimir Svareff.
Ahab and other Poems.
Ahab and other Poems.

Ahab and other Poems.

London: Privately Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1903. First edition. Softcover, (viii) + 36pp (latter eccentrically paginated) Quarto (11 x 9 inches). Original off-white Japanese vellum wrappers with title enclosed in ornamental border printed in gold on upper wrapper, over plain card covers. Printed in Caxton antique type on handmade paper. Rubricated title page. Unusual. This copy from the library of Gabriel Montenegro Vargas ('Frater Zopiron') a IX degree member of the O.T.O., and the last person to be initiated in Agape Lodge. With his bookplate on the front pastedown. According to Duncombe-Jewell only 162 copies of "Ahab" were printed, 2 on vellum, 10 on Japanese Vellum, and 150 thus, on handmade paper. The book has a dedication in verse to 'G.C.J.', George Cecil Jones, Crowley's friend and mentor in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: the poem Ahab was written by Crowley whilst visiting another old Golden Dawn associate, Alan Bennett, at Akyab in Burma. The book itself is effectively a companion to Crowley's 'Jezebel' (1898) which is almost identical in size, print, type, binding, etc. Crowley used the pseudonym Count Vladimir Svareff in both: though with his typical penchant for jokes 'Jezebel' was said to be "by Count Vladimir Svareff, Edited With an Introduction and Epilogue, by Aleister Crowley" - an order reversed in 'Ahab' - which was said to be "by Aleister Crowley, With an Introduction and Epilogue by Count Vladimir Svareff.' Largely unopened. A hint of darkening top the spine, still a near-fine copy. Item #63298

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