Clouds Without Water. Edited from a Private M. S. By the Rev. C. Verey.
London [Actually Paris]: Privately Printed [ Renouard ], 1909. First edition. Wrappers. Small Octavo. xxii + 144pp. Original mottled salmon-coloured soft paper wrappers, with title across upper wrapper, lettered up spine, and with publisher's device in centre of rear wrapper (all printed in black). Printed on machine made paper. Housed in a light brown custom-made cloth slip-case especially commissioned by its previous owner, underground filmmaker, actor, and writer, Kenneth Anger. With Anger's brown leatherette book-plate stamped in gilt with his surname and a winged scarab on the inside front cover. "Clouds Without Water" has a complex and chequered history. Despite the statement on the title page that it was published in London, "Clouds Without Water" was actually printed by Renouard of Paris (who had earlier published Crowley's obscene homo-erotic parody, "The Bagh-I-Muattar") The book is poetry with some erotic undertones - which is presumably why Crowley playfully published it under the name of a fictitious Priest "The Rev. C. Verey" and had the words "Privately Printed for Circulation Amongst Ministers of Religion" printed on the title page! The volume is most recently from the collection of Clive Harper with 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 slip case has a little fading, and a bit of light shelf-wear. The book itself shows a little splitting at the top and bottom of the front wrapper where it joins the spine, but is otherwise as close to Fine as it would be possible to get. A lovely copy with an interesting provenance. Item #67072
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