Aleister Crowley contributes a poem "The City of God (Moscow)" to The English Review, No. 62, January 1914.
London: The English Review, 1914. First Edition. Softcover. Large Octavo, approx. 170 pages (paginated i - xvi, 161 - 304, xvii - xxxii). Original printed blue wrappers. Housed in a custom-made modern blue buckram portfolio, with gilt stamped leather title-label to spine, lined with archival paper. One of Aleister Crowley's own copies (he definitely had a number of them) with his ownership SIGNATURE "Crowley" in pencil in a firm confident hand on the first (advertisement) page. This issue commences with the first appearance in print of Crowley' s six page epic poem, "The City of God" which he wrote during his travels in pre-revolutionary Russia. He recalled in his 'Confessions' that "I expressed the soul of Moscow in a poem "The City of God" .... it is a "hashish dream come true." Curiously on page x of the opening prelims, there is a half-page advertisement for The Works of George Sylvester Viereck and the International - "the organ of America's literary insurgents." This does rather beg the question as to whether it might have been Crowley's "English Review" connections that led Crowley to contact Viereck when he arrived in America shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. 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. Spine split and chipped, wrappers a bit darkened and grubby, edges chafed and lightly chipped, page edges browned, internally clean. A Good or better copy. Item #67137
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