The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Éliphas Lévi.
Chicago: De Laurence, Scott & Co., 1909. First US Edition (Unauthorised). Hardcover. Octavo. xvi + 544pp. Original gilt decorated red cloth, gilt title, etc. to spine, gilt pentagram design to front board, blind rules to margins of same. Frontispiece portrait photograph of L. W. de Laurence with tissue guards. Preliminaries printed in red and black. Notes and index.
The de Laurence pirated version of the revised second edition of Waite's pioneering collection of Levi's works in translation. The book was first published in 1886, with a heavily revised second edition appearing in 1897. According to Waite bibliographer Dr. R. A. Gilbert, "Waite altered the plan of his 'Digest', revised it extensively and added new material from the minor works of Levi, including extracts from Paradoxes of the Highest Science .." The book drew the attention of Lauron William de Laurence (1868 - 1936), an author and publisher of occult literature, who was also a prolific pirate and plagiarist, with an unpleasant penchant for taking other people's work and reissuing it under his own name (sometimes retitling it in the process). According to Gilbert, Waite's translation of Levi was too well known for de Laurence to get away with publishing it as his own work; so instead he confined himself to stating that he had arranged "for its Publication in Its Present form" - which is quite correct if one reads it as meaning that he had basically stolen Waite's work and arranged for its republication without his permission. However in gushing advertisements at the front of the book de Laurence wrote that "the English edition is very poorly made" while his own edition is "on the finest paper" - statements which Gilbert has observed are "a complete reversal of the truth." The work itself has been reset, but otherwise appears to be a verbatim reprint of the 1897 British edition, to which de Laurence had added a photograph of himself and some half-a-dozen pages of advertisements for this and other of "his" works. Despite its dubious genesis the de Laurence publication is quite handsome, its binding largely mimics that of the British edition, with the exception that it has red rather than blue cloth, and the red "silk cloth" is attractive, if not particularly durable. Gilbert B1(c). This is a quite remarkable example, probably as close to Fine as one could ever find. The spine is a hint dulled, and there is on tiny bump on the fore-edge of the front board, and a couple of tiny rubbed spots on the edges. A label from the "Occult Publishing Co." of Chicago - the book's original distributors - has been pasted over the "De Laurence, Scott & Co." imprint on the title-page, otherwise the book is internally clean, tight and in pristine condition. A truly exceptional, lovely, clean bright copy (no dust jacket issued). Item #65924
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