On June 12, Christie’s in NYC will be auctioning Aleister Crowley’s personal copy of The Works. Foyers: Ballantyne, Hanson and Co for the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1905-07.
Christie’s site gives this description:
Three volumes, 8° (194 x 132 mm). PRINTED ON VELLUM. Frontispiece portraits in each volume. Original red crushed levant morocco, the sides with vertical gilt-rules, spines in six compartments with five raised bands, gilt-lettered in two, the remaining with continued vertical gilt-ruling, by Zaehnsdorf. Provenance: Aleister Crowley (inscription); Robert Lund; purchased from his estate by the current owner.
THE AUTHOR’S COPY, THE ONLY KNOWN COPY PRINTED ON VELLUM, INSCRIBED BY CROWLEY on the front free endpaper: “This unique copy is the sole and inalienable property of Aleister Crowley and shall devolve as an heirloom to his heirs.”
Crowley’s library was stored in the Leonard Warehouse in Detroit where it remained, unclaimed, until purchased in 1958 by Hearst writer and magic museum founder Robert Lund. Lund subsequently sold all but three items from, the library (the majority of the library is now in the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas, Austin). See David Meyer, “Along Came Lund: One Magician Rescues the Library of Another,” in: Caxtonian, vol. XXII, no. 1, January 2014.
This collection is expected to sell for between $20,000 and $30,000. Time for a Jupiterian working!
Read more at: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/books-manuscripts/crowley-aleister-the-works-foyers-ballantyne-5909040-details.aspx
