Why Jesus Wept (First Impression

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WHY JESUS WEPT

(First Impression)

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Title:

Why Jesus Wept. A Study of Society and of The Grace of God.

Upper Cover

State (b)

Lower Cover

State (b)

Turned-In Cover

State (b)

Spine

State (b)

Upper Cover

State (a)

Lower Cover

State (a)

Spine

State (a)

Interior Cover

State (a)

Interior Detail

State (a)

Pagnant Rel

Bookbinder

State (a)

Title Page

Note to Page 75 & 76

Further Note

Phillipe Renouard

Print

Variations:

State (a):

1 copy printed on Roman vellum.¹

Bound by Pagnant Rel in red morocco leather.² [see images at right]

Spine has five raised bands. Stamped in gilt horizontally across spine [between bands 1 and 2] ‘A. CROWLEY | [rule] | WHY | JESUS WEPT’ and [at bottom of spine] ‘1904’.²

Interior has dentelles stamped in gilt surrounding marbled endpapers.²

Bottom of interior upper cover is stamped in gilt ‘PAGNANT REL’.²

Outside edges of upper and lower covers have,[stamped in gilt, a series of small ornaments consisting of five slanted boxes connected by a single line.²

A series of short lines stamped in gilt form a semi-circle along the top and bottom of spine, following the curvature of the spine.²

10 1/8” x 7 3/4”.³

______________________________

This copy currently resides in the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas (Call No. PR 6005 R7 W5 - Copy 1).

State (b):

20 copies printed on Japanese vellum.¹

Bound in white Japanese vellum turned-in wrappers.³

Upper cover lettered ‘WHY | JESUS | WEPT | Aleister | Crowley’.³

Lower cover has Philippe Renouard’s colophon.³

Spine lettered vertically up the spine ‘WHY JESUS WEPT’.

10 5/16” x 8”.³

State (c):

100 copies printed on hand-made paper.¹

Bound in white Japanese vellum turned-in wrappers.³

Upper cover lettered ‘WHY | JESUS | WEPT | Aleister | Crowley’.

Lower cover has Philippe Renouard’s colophon.¹

Spine lettered vertically up the spine ‘WHY JESUS WEPT’.³

10 5/16” x 8”.³

Publisher:

Privately published.¹

Printer:

Philippe Renouard, 19 rue des Saints-Peres, 19, Paris.¹

Published At:

Paris.

Date:

1904.¹

Edition:

First Edition, First Impression.³

Pages:

xviii + 80 + ii.¹

Price:

State (c) sold for two guineas.⁴

Remarks:

Title page printed in black and red.³

This edition should contain, at the back of the book, a laid-in copy of the 8-page pamphlet Mr. Crowley and The Creeds and The Creed of Mr. Chesterton with a postscript entitled A Child of Ephraim Chesterton’s Colossal Collapse.¹

This edition should also have a laid in “Note to pages 75 and 76” / “Further Note” inserted after page 76.

The second, third and fourth impressions are missing the following items present in the first and fifth impressions:

- Advertisement for the book

- Letter from the author's mother

- Dedicatio Maxima (To his unborn child)

Pagination:³

Page(s)
[i-iv]	Blank
[ v]	Half title
[ vi]	Advertisement for the book
[ vii]	Title page
[ viii]	Blank
[ix-x]	Letter from the author’s mother
[ xi]	Persons Studied
[ xii]	Quotation from Times and Bible ‘At 30, Clarendon Square, Leamington, on October 12, 1875 A.D. the \| wife of Edward Crowley of a son. \| “The Times” \| JESUS WEPT \| “John” 11.35’
[ xiii]	Dedicatio Minima (To Christ)
[ xiv]	Dedicatio Minor (To Lady S.)
[ xv]	Dedicatio Major (To Buddhist monks)
[ xvi]	Dedicatio Maxima (To his unborn child)
[xvii-xviii]	Dedicatio Extraordinaria (To G.K. Chesterton)
[1-76]	Text
[***]	“Note to Page 75 and 76” / “Further Note” inserted after page 76
[77-80]	Text
[ i]	Philippe Renouard's Colophon. “Printed by Philippe Renouard, 19, rue des Saints-Peres, 19, Paris”
[ ii]	Blank
[1-8]	Laid-in copy of *Mr. Crowley and the Creeds*

Contents:

Author’s

Working

Versions:

Other

Known

Editions:

+	Why Jesus Wept, Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (S.P.R.T.), Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness, 1904. (Second Impression)
+	Why Jesus Wept, Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (S.P.R.T.), Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness, 1905 (Third Impression)
+	Why Jesus Wept, Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (S.P.R.T.), Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness, 1905 (Fourth Impression)
+	Why Jesus Wept, Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (S.P.R.T.), Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness, 1905 (Fifth Impression)
+	The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, Vol. III, Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness, 1907.

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. 238.
2.	Personal observation of item.
3.	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, pp. 40-42.
4.	Aleister Crowley, Mortadello, Catalog “The Works of Mr. Aleister Crowley,”, bound in back of book, Wieland and Co., London, 1912.

Comments by

Aleister

Crowley:

The intensity of my repulsion makes me suspect that I wanted to make love to her and was annoyed that I was already in love. The gospels do not tell us whether the man who possessed the pearl of great price ever had moments of regret at having given up imitation jewellery. One always subconsciously connects notoriously vile women who flaunt their heartless and sexless seduction with the possibility of some supremely perverse pleasure in nastiness. However, my surface reaction was to shake the dust of Colombo from my feet and to spend my two days in Kandy in writing Why Jesus Wept.

The title is a direct allusion to the ladies in question. I prefaced the play with five dedications to (1) Christ, (2) Lady Scott, (3) my friends (Jinawaravasa, whom I had met once more in Galle, and myself), (4) my unborn child, and (5) Mr. G. K. Chesterton. (He had written a long congratulatory criticism of my The Soul of Osiris.) The idea of the play is to show a romantic boy and girl ambushed and ruined by male and female vampires. It is an allegory of the corrupting influence of society, and the moral is given in the final passage:

I much prefer—that is, mere I—

Solitude to society.

And that is why I sit and spoil

So much clean paper with such toil

By Kandy Lake in far Ceylon.

I have my old pyjamas on:

I shake my soles from Britain’s dust;

I shall not go there till I must;

And when I must!—I hold my nose.

Farewell, you filthy-minded people!

I know a stable from a steeple.

Farewell, my decent-minded friends!

I know arc lights from candle-ends.

Farewell-a poet begs your alms,

Will walk awhile among the palms,

An honest love, a loyal kiss,

Can show him better worlds than this;

Nor will he come again to yours

While he knows champak-stars from sewers.

(This play has been analysed in such detail by Captain J. F. C. Fuller in The Star in the West that it would be impertinent of me to discuss it further.)

— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Page2 384-385.

______________________________

My activities as a publisher were at this time remarkable. I had issued The God-Eater and The Star & the Garter through Charles Watts & Co. of the Rationalist Press Association, but there was still no such demand for my books as to indicate that I had touched the great heart of the British public. I decided that it would save trouble to publish them myself. I decided to call myself the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, and issued The Argonauts, The Sword of Song, the Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King, Why Jesus Wept, Oracles, Orpheus, Gargoyles and The Collected Works.

— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Page 406.

______________________________

Why Jesus Wept exhibits love as the road to ruin. It is the sentimental point of view about it which is the catastrophe of Sir Percy’s career.

— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Page 557.

Reviews:

It is a work which, as far as pious innocence is concerned, should be kept strictly under lock and key. . . . The strange mingling of ribaldry, indecency, poetry, and wit, could be perpetrated by no one but Mr. Crowley; and certainly no other author would issue, under his own name, such a ruthless violation of conventionalities. The display of Mr. Crowley’s rampant virility does not always take a commendable turn, and many readers will regret that his genius has been given so loose a range. . . . It is possible that electric shocks of this nature may prove beneficial in some cases.

—The Literary Guide, date unknown.

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