The Book of Thoth; A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians, being the Equinox Volume III No. V
London: OTO/Chiswick Press Ltd., 1944. First Edition, Signed and Numbered. Hardcover, Quarto, xii + 288 + [iv] pp. Original magnificent half-leather binding with papered boards with Egyptian motif by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Gilt title and designs to spine, tipped in color plates, b&w illustrations. Printed by the Chiswick Press on Arnold Unbleached paper. The rare half- leather variant of the First Edition of this master work on the Thoth tarot by Aleister Crowley and Frieda, Lady Harris. COPY NUMBER 13 of an edition of 200 signed and numbered copies. It is SIGNED by CROWLEY as "To Mega Therion" ["the Great Wild Beast" in Greek] 666 / 9 = 2 A.'. A.'." on the limitation page. An important ASSOCIATION copy acquired directly from Crowley by Edward Bryant, who was involved in the production of the book. Edward Bryant (1920-1998), was a friend of Frieda Harris' and acquaintance of Crowley's who had a life-long interest in the occult, helped organise the Thoth Tarot card exhibitions in 1941 and 1942, and had a role in the publication of "The Book of Thoth" as well as in the composition of the "letters" which would form the book later published as "Magick Without Tears." There are at least 40 references to Bryant in Crowley's diaries, from January 1943 when the pair were first introduced by Harris, to January 1947, when Bryant last visited Crowley at Hastings. Several of the references are with regard to Bryant's purchase of "The Book of Thoth", his initial subscription to it and apparent tardiness in paying for it! The pair also corresponded: Weiser Antiquarian had a significant long letter from Crowley to Bryant in our Catalogue No. 173. Much of Bryant's library was dispersed by auction at London in 1999, which is where his copy of "The Book of Thoth" was purchased by its most recent owner, Clive Harper. As noted, the copy is one of only a small number of special copies of "The Book of Thoth" that were issued bound in half leather (ie. the boards or covers have leather corners in addition to a leather spine), a very tricky and labour intensive embellishment that adds considerably to the binding costs. In his excellent biography of Crowley "Perdurabo", Richard Kaczynski suggests that only eleven copies were issued thus. We suspect that while this may have been Crowley's original intention the actual number bound thus was slightly higher, but likely no more than twenty, and the half-leather issue is genuinely rare. Such copies typically only went to those within Crowley's inner circle. The book is, most recently, from the collection of Clive Harper and has his discrete book-label neatly tipped in at the rear. Harper is well-known as the bibliographer of Austin Osman Spare, for updating the Aleister Crowley bibliography in the 2011 Teitan Press collection of Gerald Yorke's writings, and as someone who has lent his expertise to numerous other publications. The label can easily be removed without affecting the page, although it would be a shame not to preserve this record of the book's provenance. The boards have a little light shelfwear, but overall the book is as near to Fine condition as it would be possible to get - even the edges where the Egyptian style paper folds over the boards and which are notoriously subject to rubbing are undamaged. As Crowley specialists for decades, we have handled several dozen of copies of "The Book of Thoth" but this is without doubt one of the nicest we have seen in terms of condition. A clean solid, about Fine copy of a magnificent book. Item #65104
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