Why Jesus Wept (Second Impression)

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WHY JESUS WEPT

(Second Impression)

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Title:

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

Upper Cover

Lower Cover

Turned-In Cover

Spine

Title Page

Print

Variations:

Printed on Japanese vellum.¹

Pages unopened.¹

Bound in turned-in purple wrappers.¹

Upper cover lettered in gilt ‘WHY | JESUS | WEPT | Aleister | Crowley’.¹

Lower cover has Phillipe Renouard’s colophon.¹

Spine lettered vertically up the spine ‘WHY JESUS WEPT’.¹

10 7/16” x 8”.¹

Publisher:

Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (S.P.R.T.).¹

Printer:

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

Published At:

Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness.¹

Date:

1904.¹

Edition:

Second Impression.¹

Pages:

xii + 80 + ii.¹

Price:

Priced at 21 shillings.²

Remarks:

A copy of this edition in purple wrappers was among the inventory of Crowley's book collection while he was at Netherwood.³

Title page printed in black and red and states “Second Impression.” The title page additionally states the publisher as “Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth”, “Boleskine Foyers Inverness.”

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:¹

Page(s)
[α-β]	Blank
[ i]	Half title
[ ii]	Blank
[ iii]	Title page
[ iv]	Blank
[ v]	Persons Studied
[ vi]	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’
[ vii]	Dedicatio Minima (To Christ)
[ viii]	Dedicatio Minor (To Lady S.)
[ ix]	Dedicatio Major (To Buddhist monks)
[x-xi]	Dedicatio Extraordinaria (To G.K. Chesterton)
[ xii]	Blank
[1-80]	Text
[ i]	Phillipe Renouard’s colophon
[ ii]	Blank

Contents:

Author’s

Working

Versions:

Other

Known

Editions:

+	Why Jesus Wept, Privately published, Paris, 1904 (First 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.	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. 42-43.
2.	Aleister Crowley, Mortadello, Catalog “The Works of Mr. Aleister Crowley,”, bound in back of book, Wieland and Co., London, 1912.
3.	Kenneth Grant, Remembering Aleister Crowley, Skoob Books Publishing, London, 1991, p. 54.

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 jewelry. 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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