White Stains
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Limited Edition of 418 copies
Edited, with an introduction, by William Breeze. Illustrated with six color plates by Fredrik Soderberg.
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English poet-magician Aleister Crowley published White Stains in 1898, an era of intense creativity for the budding magus-to-be.
The original edition of a mere 100 copies was printed in Amsterdam with the help of Leonard Smithers (publisher of Beardsley, Wilde, Burton, et al).
Part of the editions was later "appropriated" and destroyed by English Customs officers, due to the erotic nature of the poems. In a Victorian Zeitgeist that found intensely shocking, Aleister Crowley of course took everything one step further.
The virile sexual force stemming from Crowley's pen is but one of his trademark traits here. In this early collection, we also find examples of his remarkable wit, a thorough understanding of psycho-sexual dynamics, bombastic expressions of lyrical love, as well as his beloved Swinburnean structures of classical poetry. White Stains really is Crowley at his youthful best.
Crowley used the pseudonym of George Archibald Bishop (a Neuropath of the Second Empire) as a veil, though the name was taken by Crowley from his mother whose maiden name was Bishop.
A Fine Cloth Edition in dust jacket. Four color printing. Small Octavo.
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