The Diary of a Drug Fiend
Original price
£5,500.00
-
Original price
£5,500.00
Original price
£5,500.00
£5,500.00
-
£5,500.00
Current price
£5,500.00
| /
New York: E.P.Dutton & Company. 1923.
First US edition in the scarce dustjacket
First US edition. 8vo. 185x125mm. pp. [8], 368. Black cloth, lettered in red to upper cover and spine. Original dustjacket. Repaired closed tear to fold of dust jacket at spine and upper cover and small tears at the fold with the flap on the lower cover. Chipping and creasing to edges of jacket including head and foot of spine but overall in very good condition particularly given that it is hard to find the jacket at all (only one copy of the first US edition with the jacket appears in the auction records). Internally very good.
Crowley described this highly autobiographical novel as "a true story. It has been rewritten only so far as was necessary to conceal personalities". The novel treats of two of Crowley's favourite subjects, drug use and the occult. It describes the descent of Sir Peter Pendragon and his wife Louise into heroin and cocaine addiction and their eventual cure and redemption following their stay at the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily. Here, under the guidance of Basil King Lamus (a thinly disguised Crowley), they are initiated into the occult, discover their True Will and are freed from the chains of addiction. The Diary of a Drug Fiend enjoyed an early succès de scandale principally due to its unsparing account of drug use and abuse but Crowley's real purpose was to show how his particular strain of magic and the occult could transform even the most difficult lives.
