The Secret Tradition in Alchemy.
New York: Alfred Knopf, 1926. First US Edition. Hardcover. Large . xxii+ 416 pp. Bright blue cloth with gilt titling and green decorative borders to spine, titling to upper board within green and gilt solar panel, top edge green. The first American edition of this work about which Waite scholar R. A. Gilbert observes: "The book has been critized .... for rejecting a spiritual interpretation of pre-Renaissance alchemy, but it remains, for all its shortcomings the only accessible study of the occult ramifications of alchemy in the 18th Century and of such odd theorists as Mrs Atwood and General Hitchcock". [Gilbert A39(b)]. Cloth of spine rubbed and somewhat darkened with some loss to title, some darkening and spotting to boards, some quite dark foxing to fore-edge of text block, bleeding into the margins of the pages. Otherwise a tight, clean better-than-VG copy (no dust jacket). Item #72996
Price: $295.00