|
|
| |
»»
Download Facsimile of Book (states a &
b) ««
»»
Download Facsimile of Book (state c) «« |
|
Image
Thumbnails |
|
Title: |
Aceldama.
A Place to Bury Strangers In. A Philosophical Poem by a
Gentleman of the University of Cambridge. |
|
Cover -
State (a)
Copy
# 2
Rear
- State (a)
Copy
# 2
Spine -
State (a)
Copy
# 2
Dentelles Detail
State (a) Copy # 2
Limitation-
State (b)
Copy
# 2
Cover -
State (b)
Copy
# 3
Rear
- State (b)
Copy
# 3
Spine -
State (b)
Copy
# 3
Marbled Endpapers
State (b) Copy # 3
Cover -
State (c)
Rear
- State (c)
Title Page
- State (c)
Limitation
Page
State (c)
Detail of
Turned-In
Wrapper - State (c) |
|
Print
Variations: |
|
State (a): |
2
copies printed on thick vellum.1
Numbered 1 and 2.1
7 1/2” x 10”.1
______________________________
Copy No. 1 currently resides in the Gerald Yorke
collection located in the Warburg Institute Library,
University of London. This copy is inscribed by
Crowley to “A B” and it's believed that it was meant to
be presented to Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley is
said to have been referenced in stanza XXVII of
Aceldama.16
This book was
purchased by Yorke on 24 April 1952 from the bookseller
George Frederick Sims for the price of £17/10/-.2
Rebound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe at the direction of
George Frederick Sims in a reddish tan goatskin with gilt top edge and Cockerell
enpapers.3
7 1/2” x
9 7/8”. The leaves are slightly smaller than when
originally printed due to being trimmed by Sangorski
prior to gilding the top edge.4
________________________
Copy No. 2 currently resides in the Harry Ransom Center,
University of Texas, Austin, Texas, in the Aleister
Crowley Collection, Series I. Works, 1893-1974,
Subseries B. Poetry, 1893-1910, box 5, folder 8.12
[See
images at right.]
Rebound in white vellum. Upper cover board stamped
in gilt with a crest with the Latin word “SPES” [Hope -
motto on Crowley's family crest15].
Lower cover board stamped in gilt with Crowley’s
stylized monogram of “A C” surmounted by a crown. Spine stamped in gilt up
the spine ‘ACELDAMA’. Interior dentelles stamped
in gilt. Original Japanese vellum
wrapper is bound in at rear.12
7 1/2” x
10”.13 |
|
State (b): |
10
copies printed on thick Japanese vellum.1
Bound in thin Japanese vellum turned-in wrapper
repeating title-page.1
Upper cover lettered ‘ACELDAMA, | A PLACE TO BURY
STRANGERS IN. | A Philosophical Poem | BY | A GENTLEMAN
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. | PRIVATELY PRINTED. |
LONDON: | 1898’.1
Numbered
3-12.1
7 1/2” x 10”.1
______________________________
Copy No. 3
currently resides in the Harry Ransom Center, University
of Texas, Austin, Texas (Call No. PR 6005 R7 A63 1898). Rebound in full red morocco leather with interior dentelles.
Upper cover stamped in gilt with a crest with the Latin
word “SPES” [Hope - motto on Crowley's family crest15]. Lower cover stamped in gilt with
Crowley’s stylized monogram of “A C” surmounted by a
crown. Spine stamped in gilt up the spine ‘ALCEDAMA’. Edges of the binding are embossed
in gilt with two parallel lines. Marbled
endpapers front and rear. Original Japanese vellum
wrapper is Bound in at rear.12
[See
images at right.]
Copy No. 5
currently resides in the Gerald Yorke collection
located in the Warburg Institute Library, University of
London. Rebound
by Stoakley in dark red morocco leather, lettered in
gold ACELDAMA within a border of triple gilt rules and
with the date '1898' at the foot of the spine.5
Copy No. 6
currently resides in the Harry Ransom Center, University
of Texas, Austin, Texas (Call No. PR 6005 R7 A63 1898).12 |
|
State (C): |
88
copies printed on hand-made paper1 [by
Abbey Mills, Greenfield.8]
Bound in a Japanese vellum turned-in wrapper repeating
title-page.1
Upper cover lettered ‘ACELDAMA, | A PLACE TO BURY
STRANGERS IN. | A Philosophical Poem | BY | A GENTLEMAN
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. | PRIVATELY PRINTED. |
LONDON: | 1898’.1
Numbered 13-100.1 Note:
Not all copies are numbered.12
7 5/8” x 5”.10
__________________
Copy No. 16 currently resides in a private collection
and is inscribed by Crowley “To Leonard Smithers hys
fyrst booke.”8
Copy No. 23 belonged to Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones).14 |
|
|
|
Publisher: |
Leonard
Charles Smithers.6 |
|
|
Printer: |
Francis Edwin
Murray.19
“Printed
by an obscure printer in the Brompton-road, London.”1 |
|
|
Published At: |
London.1 |
|
|
Date: |
1898.
Crowley in his “Confessions” states that the book was published
in the [Cambridge] May term of 1898. Timothy d'Arch Smith
believes Crowley actually meant the Easter term beginning on 18
April.7 |
|
|
Edition: |
1st
Edition. |
|
|
Pages: |
32.1 |
|
|
Price: |
State (a)
priced at 10/6.19
State (b)
priced at 10/6.19
State (c)
priced at 3/6.19
State (c)
was sold
privately at Cambridge University for a half-crown.18
Copies sold
later for 42 shillings.17 |
|
|
Remarks: |
Published
under the pseudonym of “A Gentleman of the University of
Cambridge” presumably in honor of Shelley who published his
St. Irvyne; or the Rosicrucian: a Romance as “a gentleman of
the University of Oxford.”
“Most of the first twelve copies were additionally bound up in
full vellum or morocco.”9 |
|
|
Pagination:
Applies to:
State (a) 11
and
State (b)13 |
|
Page(s) |
|
|
[
1] |
Half-title |
|
[
2] |
Quotation from “Songs of the Spirit”, p. 13, Lines 1–4 |
|
[
3] |
Title-page |
|
[
4] |
Quotation: St. John xii,
24-25 |
|
[
5] |
Dedication |
|
[
6] |
à
toi |
|
[
7] |
Preface |
|
[
8] |
Quotation: Acts I, 18-19 |
|
[ 9] |
Fly-title |
|
[10] |
Quotation from Swinburne’s
‘The Leper’ |
|
11-27 |
Text |
|
[28] |
Epilogue |
|
[29] |
Limitation Notice |
|
|
|
Pagination:
Applies to:
State (c)13 |
|
Page(s) |
|
|
[
1] |
Half-title |
|
[
2] |
Quotation from “Songs of the Spirit”, p. 13, Lines 1–4 |
|
[
3] |
Title-page |
|
[
4] |
Quotation: St. John xii,
24-25 |
|
[
5] |
Preface |
|
[
6] |
Quotation: Acts I, 18-19 |
|
[
7] |
Dedication |
|
[ 8] |
á
toi |
|
[
9] |
Fly-title |
|
[10] |
Quotation from Swinburne’s
‘The Leper’ |
|
11-27 |
Text |
|
[28] |
Epilogue |
|
[29] |
Limitation Notice |
|
|
|
Contents: |
- Preface
- Aceldama, A Place To Bury Strangers In
- Epilogue |
|
|
Author’s
Working
Versions: |
|
|
|
Other
Known
Editions: |
|
|
|
Bibliographic
Sources: |
|
1. |
L. C. R.
Duncombe-Jewell, Notes Towards An Outline of
A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Aleister Crowley, The Works of Aleister Crowley,
Volume III, Appendix A, Gordon Press, New York, 1974, p.
233. |
|
2. |
Timothy
d’Arch Smith, ‘Aleister Crowley’s Aceldama
(1898): The A B Copy’, Book Collector, 56, 2
(Summer 2007), p. 213. |
|
3. |
Ibid,
p. 219. |
|
4. |
Ibid,
p. 231. |
|
5. |
Ibid,
p. 220. |
|
6. |
Ibid,
p. 215. |
|
7. |
Ibid,
p. 216. |
|
8. |
Timothy
d’Arch Smith, The Books of the Beast,
Mandrake, Oxford; 1991, p. 24. |
|
9. |
Clive Harper, A Bibliography of the Works of Aleister
Crowley (Expanded and Corrected), Aleister Crowley,
The Golden Dawn and Buddhism: Reminiscences and
Writings of Gerald Yorke, The Teitan Press, York
Beach, Maine, 2011, p. 40. |
|
10. |
Dianne Frances
Rivers, A Bibliographic List with
Special Reference To the Collection at the University of
Texas, Master of Arts Thesis, The University
of Texas, Austin, Texas, 1967, p. 2. |
|
11. |
Ibid,
p. 1. |
|
12. |
Harry
Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
|
|
13. |
Personal observation of the item. |
|
14. |
Correspondence, Frater Achad (Charles
Stansfeld Jones) to Aleister Crowley, 10 January 1918.
OTO Film 5 (Correspondence with Charles Stansfeld
Jones), Aleister Crowley Papers, The Microfilm Edition,
Ordo Templi Orientis in association with The Warburg
Institute, 2002. |
|
15. |
Tobias Churton, Aleister Crowley: The Biography,
Watkins Publishing, London, 2011,
p. 434. |
|
16. |
Miriam J. Benkovitz, Aubrey
Beardsley: An Account of His Life (New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1981), p. 136. |
|
17. |
Aleister Crowley, Mortadello,
Catalog “The Works of Mr. Aleister Crowley” bound in
back of book, Wieland and Co., London, 1912, p. 111. |
|
18. |
Richard Kaczynski, Ph.D., Perdurabo:
The Life of Aleister Crowley, North Atlantic Books,
Berkeley, California, 2010, p. 46. |
|
19. |
James
G. Nelson / Peter Mendes,
Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in
the careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson,
Pennsylvania State University Press, May 2000, p. 339. |
|
|
|
Comments
by
Aleister
Crowley: |
But in
Aceldama, my first published poem of any importance, I
attained, at a bound, the summit of my Parnassus. In a sense, I
have never written anything better. It is absolutely
characteristic. Its technical excellence is remarkable and it is
the pure expression of my unconscious self. I had no
corresponding mental concepts at the time. It enounces a
philosophy which subsequent developments have not appreciably
modified. I remember my own attitude to it. It seemed to me a
willfully extravagant eccentricity. I had no idea that it was the
pure water of the Dircean spring.
— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Page 138.
______________________________
My
Aceldama had just been issued and was being sold privately
in the university at half-a-crown. (There were only
eighty-eight copies, with ten on large paper and two on vellum.)
One of the mottoes in Aceldama is a quotation from
Swinburne’s “The leper”. I had not acknowledged the authorship
of Aceldama; it was by A Gentleman of the University of
Cambridge" in imitation of one of Shelley’s earlier books.
— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Page 150. |
|
|
Reviews: |
The only
known review of Aceldama appeared in an issue of Cantab.
Induced by we know not what course of reading, the book is not
one that we can recommend to the young, for though its stanzas
are sufficiently musical, there runs through them a vein of
scepticism and licentiousness which required to be treated with
caution.
—The
Cantab, date unknown. |
|
|
