Olla. 60 Years of Song.
San Francisco CA: Stellar Visions, 1986. First Edition Thus. Large format softcover. Quarto (8.5 x 11 inches), (i-viii) 11 - (129) + (ii)pp. Flexible clear plastic front cover over printed paper cover sheet, dark blue plastic rear cover, secured together with a blue plastic back strip. Hand-colored endsheets. First published in 1947, "Olla" is Crowley's own selection of his best poetry and the last of his books to be published in his own lifetime. It is arguably the most under-rated of Crowley's works: not only is some of the verse truly magical, but it shows his tremendous versatility, ranging from traditional sonnets and couplets, to the intensely romantic ("La Gitana"); the deeply magical ("An Oath" to Aiwaz), to modernist satire: his "Panacea" described by him as "an International Anthem to Anglo-Saxondom" and which simply consists of the word "Money" printed over and over again. It ends with his stirring "Hymn to Pan", a work which less than a year after the first publication of this volume would be read at Crowley's funeral by fellow poet Louis Wilkinson. Coincidentally Crowley had earlier vouchsafed the meaning of the book's title, "Olla", to his friend Louis Marlow Wilkinson, indicating that it referred to a line in Catullus's "particularly foul" epigram "Ipsa oler olla legit" in which the word "Olla", which in conventional Latin might have translated as "vase, urn or jar" in that context is clearly used to describe the vagina.
This edition was published by the well-known OTO figure Ebony Anpu and his co-publisher Lotte Lieb (Sr Iahan) under their Stellar Visions imprint. The verso of the first title page has a series of quotes from the Grady McMurtry versus the Marcelo Motta court case of 1985 on the recto, and a blank verso, whilst the final leaf has a statement about the O.T.O. on the recto, and a blank verso. The actual text of the book appears to be a somewhat better than Xerox quality facsimile of the original 1947 edition of "Olla."
From the collection of Clive Harper with his discreet 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. Covers lightly rubbed, colored endpaper a bit rippled, a few light marks to page edges - otherwise a bright, unmarked near Fine copy. Scarce in this edition. Item #69772
Sold