Occult & Esoterica
[CROWLEY, Aleister] The Book of Lies (Liber CCCXXXIII). Which is also Falsely Called Breaks ... (1913, 1st Edition)
[CROWLEY, Aleister] The Book of Lies (Liber CCCXXXIII). Which is also Falsely Called Breaks ... (1913, 1st Edition)
Full title: The Book of Lies (Liber CCCXXXIII). Which is also Falsely Called Breaks. The Wanderings or Falsifications of the One Thought of Frater Perdurabo, which Thought is itself Untrue
London: Weiland & Co., 1913. First Edition. Hardcover. 16mo (5 1/2" x 3 7/16"). 116 pages plus 15 pages of advertisements. Bound in black cloth, upper cover stamped in gilt (within an ornamental Egyptian-styled frame), spine lettered in gilt. Printed on hand-made paper. Two full page photographs (Crowley on horseback, and Laylah). Errata slip tipped-on to page 60 (as issued). Features 15 page catalog of Crowley's work at end of volume entitled: "The Excreta of Mr. Crowley." There is a 2" tear to the cloth on lower front gutter which does not affect binding at all. Some rubbing to cloth. Small chips to spine ends, slight lean to spine, light corner wear. Paper split at hinges at pages 32 & 33, and 64 & 65, with no affect to binding. Still, a very good copy of this unusual work.
This is Crowley’s witty, instructive, and admirable collection of paradoxes; however, it is not a philosophical or mystical treatise. Scholars have said it is “stupendously idiotic and amazingly clever.” The 93 chapters, which may be a single word, a half dozen phrases, twenty paragraphs, or even two pages, have subjects determined more or less definitely by Qabalistic significance - for example, Chapter 25 gives a revised ritual of the Pentagram.