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THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY

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Title:

The World’s Tragedy.

Upper Cover

Lower Cover

Turned-In

Cover Detail

Title Page

Dedication

Book Catalog

Page xxvii

Page xxviii

Print

Variations:

Publisher:

Privately published.

Printer:

Philippe Renouard, 19 Rue des Sainta-Peres.^{3, 6}

Published At:

Paris.¹

Date:

1910.¹

Edition:

1st Edition.

Pages:

viii + xlviii + 139 + i + 3 pages of advertisements + i.²

Price:

Priced at 42 shillings or Two Guineas as stated on the half-title page.⁵

Remarks:

Written during a five-day period in February 1908.⁴

Title page is printed in red and black.⁵ 

It’s said that pages xxvii and xxviii of most copies were mutilated to erase the homosexual references contained on the pages.⁶

Pagination:²

Contents:

- Preface

- Proem

- Prologue - The Garden of Eros

- I - The Red Star

- II - The White Wind

- III - The Blue Dwarf

- IV - The Black Bean

- V - The Grey Night

Author’s

Working

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Other

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Editions:

Bibliographic

Sources:

Comments by

Aleister

Crowley:

     I had thus no difficulty at school as far as lessons were concerned, but in my three years at Champney’s I had no lack of trouble; the nature of this can only be understood if I adduce a few facts to indicate the atmosphere. I used to tell people about my school life and met with such consistent incredulity that I made a little collection of incidents in the preface to my The World’s Tragedy.

     — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  New York, NY.  Hill and Wang, 1969.  Page 63.

______________________________

     My twelve months of creative spurt reached a climax in February 1908, when I wrote the five books of The World’s Tragedy in five consecutive days at Eastbourne. This is beyond all question the high-water mark of my imagination, my metrical fluency, my wealth of expression, and my power of bringing together the most incongruous ideas so as to enrich my matter to the utmost. At the same time, I succeeded in reaching the greatest height of spiritual enthusiasm, human indignation, and demoniac satire. I sound the gamut of every possibility of emotion from innocent faith and enthusiasm to experienced cynicism.

     — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  New York, NY.  Hill and Wang, 1969.  Page 558.

______________________________

     I went back to Paris on July 8th. I worked on Clouds Without Water, Sir Palamedes, The World’s Tragedy and “Mr. Todd”. In particular, I wrote the autobiographical preface to The World’s Tragedy, some ten thousand words, at a stretch; and certain lyrics, mostly about Dorothy, of whom more in a moment. “Mr. Todd”, as the name implies, is a personification of death an the idea of the play is to introduce him as deus ex machina, helping the characters one by one out of their various troubles. The idea sounds a good one, but apart from availing myself of my opportunities for double entendre (“I was told the other day that he held a lot of land in London and has more tenants than the Duke of Westminster!”), I could not make much of it. The repetition of the idea was bound to be rather ridiculous. It is my one failure in this period.

     The truth doubtless is that I had used up the energy accumulated in my wanderings, and written myself out: i.e., as far as anything big was concerned. I was in excellent form with lyrics and wrote several as good as anything I had ever done. In particular “After Judgment”, to the honour and glory of Dorothy, will stand in English literature as one of the most passionate poems in the language.

     — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  New York, NY.  Hill and Wang, 1969.  Pages 573-574.

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