Rock-Climbing in North Wales.

Keswick, Cumberland G.P.Abraham. 1906.

Aleister Crowley's copy with his annotations.

First edition. 8vo. 228x150mm. pp. xxi [i], 394, [4pp adverts]. Twenty nine black and white photographs. Nine full page line maps and diagrams and ten drawings in the text. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Top edges gilt. Rubbing to edges, head and foot of spine bumped and rubbed. Some marking to boards. Internally very good with only some very slight foxing to the edges. One of the blank preliminaries has the pencil inscription "Aleister Crowley 1906. Bought at the request of Oscar Eckenstein". Annotated throughout in pencil by Crowley. Eckenstein was one of the great pioneering mountaineers and a friend and close climbing associate of Crowley. The two men were part of the first serious attempt to climb K2. 
George and Ashley Abraham were central figures in the development of British rock climbing. Their book on the subject in North Wales is a classic of the genre notable for its superb photographs taken by the two brothers - their father was a photographer and they took over the family shop and studio.
It is tempting to see Aleister Crowley's interest in mountaineering as standing apart from the other, more controversial, aspects of his life. But, in fact, it was central to his thinking and personality. Mountain climbing involves living and operating on the edge (both literally and figuratively) and has always attracted outsiders, free-thinkers and pantheistic spiritual seekers: "Up in the mountains, there you feel free" as Eliot was to write. It is no coincidence that one of the most important conversations of Crowley's life - a discussion about alchemy with the chemist Julian Baker - should have taken place in Zermatt in the shadow of the Matterhorn. On his return home, Crowley began moving in occult circles and was, that same year (1898) initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
The handwritten comments in this copy of Rock-Climbing in North Wales, offer an insight into Crowley's combative nature and it is probably fair to say that you wouldn't want to be stuck up a mountain with him. There are sharp asides on the Abraham brothers' grammar (as well as an unfortunate comment on their race) and jibes about their skill as climbers. Exclamation and question marks abound although there are some grudging words of praise for the Abrahams' courage - quite a few cries of "Good God" when they describe a fearsome manoeuvre. And in one amusingly succinct comment, where the brothers describe a very difficult climb but then say that it is so dangerous that they will not say where it is, Crowley merely observes: "Shit".

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