The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis). Now First Translated and edited from Ancient MSS in the British Museum.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1909. Second Edition. Hardcover, Quarto. (8" x 10 1/4") viii (+ ii) + 126pp Original cloth boards with contrasting buckram spine, lettered in gilt. Teg., others uncut. With 15 full page plates - 7 on blue coloured paper - depicting sigils, talismans, and a table of "The Mystic Alphabets." The "Key of Solomon" was long accounted as amongst "the most famous, or infamous, of all magical textbooks." The Mather's translation was the true first published edition of this famous work, the seventeenth century Paris edition being both corrupt and woefully incomplete. Mathers is famous as one of the founders and leaders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as an occult scholar, and as the long-time nemesis of his former pupil, Aleister Crowley. Mathers based his edition of the "Key of Solomon" on 7 manuscripts then housed in the British Museum. It was first published by Redway in 1889, in a limited edition of 500 copies. It seems possible that some accident befell part of the print-run, and fewer copies were issued than stated. Whatever the reason within two decades of publication copies were already difficult-to-find and sought after, which is presumably why Kegan Paul arranged for this reissue. As far as is known, no textual alterations were made between editions, although the pagination varies, due to changes in layout. The print run is also undetermined, although it must have been small as copies are genuinely uncommon. A few light marks to the cloth, which has some very light rubbing to the head and tail of spine and points. A hint of shadowing to the endpapers, small contemporary bookseller's label on front free endpaper. Overall a lovely, bright, clean VG+ or better copy of a scarce and important work. Item #65658
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