Crowley, Aleister. THE STRATAGEM AND OTHER STORIES.

Description

Crowley, Aleister. THE STRATAGEM AND OTHER STORIES. London: The Mandrake Press, n.d.

A collection of three short stories: The Stratagem; The Testament of Magdalen Blair; His Secret Sin. The middle story “a description of after death experiences as the brain decays” is noted in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural as “one of the most horrible stories ever written” and in The Guide to Supernatural Fiction (Bleiler) “a remarkable achievement, as one of the most unpleasant stories in the genre”. The only collection of short fiction by Crowley published in his lifetime.

First edition, first printing. Publisher’s original gold and black snakeskin effect boards with titles in black on a white paper label to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with some rubbing to the lower board edges. The contents,  other than some uniform toning to the paper stock and some light toning to endpapers, are clean throughout. Complete with the supplied original cream dustwrapper that is mildly rubbed and nicked to the extremities, with one short closed tear to lower edge near spine. Bookplate of noted Australian collector Leigh Blackmore to f.f.e., and small ownership stamp of an Australian occult order to front pastedown, else VG+