The Star In the West. A Critical Essay Upon The Works of Aleister Crowley.
New York NY: Gordon Press, 1974. Facsimilie Reprint. Hardcover. Octavo. Large octavo (9 1/4 6 1/4 inches). iv + 328pp. Publisher's red series cloth with gilt titling to spine & front board. A facsimile reprint of 1907 edition, although without the plates in the original. Fuller, who went on to become one of Crowley's leading disciples, originally wrote the work as an entry in a competition Crowley held for the best essay on his own literary work. Fuller's essay won (it is rumoured to have been the only entry) and - surely somewhat surprisingly - he was duly paid the hundred pound prize that Crowley had offered. With Crowley's assistance Fuller rewrote the essay, and Crowley published it.
This edition was published by the Gordon Press, a mysterious small press that appeared briefly in the 1970s - it was most active between 1973 and 1975 - and produced, obviously at considerable cost, a uniform edition of good quality hardcover reprints of about 20 Crowley titles and a small number of other related occult works. Most had a print run of 200 copies or less and were quite expensive, almost guaranteeing that in the unlikely event that they sold well they could still be barely profitable. The almost clandestine nature of the Press, along with its proprietor's seeming lack of interest in commercial success, has led to much speculation, including the suggestion that the Press publications were funded by a government agency who were interested in discovering who it was that would purchase books of this type! As far as we know almost all the original sales were direct mail-order from the press itself so a record could have easily been made, but to our knowledge there is no actual evidence that this was the case. Given small print-runs, and seemingly terrible distribution, the books seldom appeared on the market, and already by the 1980s & 1990s they were generally regarded as scarce by collectors. Then, in the early 2000s, someone discovered a number of boxes containing brand new copies of about a dozen different Gordon Press Crowley titles. Not surprisingly, these were mostly printings of his most obscure poetical works and plays which had not sold as well as his fiction or magickal works. Books likes this edition of "The Equinox of the Gods" had long sold out and are genuinely uncommon, in fact in our experience the Gordon Press "The Star In the West" is actually scarcer than the original first edition. Merest hint of shelf-wear, but overall tight, bright and clean near-Fine copy. (no dust jacket issued). Scarce. Item #74572
Price: $125.00