Ahab - 1903

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AHAB AND OTHER POEMS

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Title:

Ahab and Other Poems. With an Introduction and Epilogue by Count Vladimir Svareff.

Cover

Title Page

Print
Variations:

State (a):

2 copies printed on vellum.
Bound in white Japanese turned-in wrappers.
Upper wrapper lettered in gilt within a decorative border ‘AHAB | and other poems’.

______________________________

One copy rebound by Zaehnsdorf in black morocco leather with paneled backstrip.
Spine lettered vertically down in gilt ‘AHAB | 1903’.
Interior has dentelles in gilt.

State (b):

10 copies printed on Japanese vellum.
Pages uncut.⁵
Bound in white turned-in wrappers of a thinner Japanese vellum.
Upper wrapper lettered in gilt within a decorative border ‘AHAB | and other poems’.
10 7/8” x 8 5/8”.

______________________________

One copy rebound by Zaehnsdorf in black morocco leather.
Interior has dentelles in gilt.

10 7/8” x 8 5/8”.

State (c):

150 copies printed on hand-made paper.
Pages uncut.⁵
Bound in off-white Japanese vellum turned-in wrappers over plain card covers.
Upper wrapper lettered in gilt on within a decorative border ‘AHAB | and other poems’.
10 7/8” x 8 5/8”.

______________________________

One copy rebound by Zaehnsdorf in red morocco leather.
Interior has dentelles in gilt .

10 7/8” x 8 5/8”.

Publisher:

Privately published.

Printer:

Chiswick Press.¹

Published At:

Cooks Court, Chancery Lane, London.⁴

Date:

1903.¹

Edition:

1st Edition.

Pages:

viii + 36.

Price:

The hand-made paper copies were priced at 5 shillings.¹

Remarks:

Printed in the Caxton fount of antique type.¹
Title page printed in black and red.
Count Vladimir Svareff is a pseudonym of Aleister Crowley.
Dedicated to George Cecil Jones

Pagination:

Page(s)
[ i]	Half-title
[ ii]	Blank
[ iii]	Title-page
[ iv]	Blank
[ v]	Dedication to George Cecil Jones, Paris, December 9, 1902.
[ vi]	Blank
[ vii]	Contents
[ viii]	Blank
[ 1]	Rondel
[ 2]	Blank
[3-11]	Text (Part I)
[ 12]	Blank
[13-21]	Text (Part II)
[ 22]	Blank
[ 23]	Divisional title ‘Other Poems’
[ 24]	Blank
[ 25]	Text
[ 26]	Blank
[27-29]	Text
[ 30]	Blank
[31-33]	Text
[ 34]	Blank
[ 35]	Epilogue
[ 36]	Colophon ‘[Printer’s coat of arms] \| Chiswick Press: Cooks Court, \| Chancery Lane, London.’

Contents:

- Rondel

- Ahab

- Balzac

- Melusine

- The Dream

- Epilogue

Author’s
Working
Versions:

1.	Holograph manuscript and typescript version bound together. Pages: 67. Dated: 1903. Box 6, Folder 1. Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX.

Other
Known
Editions:

+	The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, Vol. II, pg. 121, Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness, 1906.
+	Gordon Press, New York, 1974.

Bibliographic
Sources:

1.	L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell, Notes Towards An Outline of A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Aleister Crowley, The Works of Aleister Crowley, Volume III, Appendix A, Gordon Press, New York, 1974.
2.	Dianne Frances Rivers, A Bibliographic List with Special Reference To the Collection at the University of Texas, Master of Arts Thesis, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 1967.
3.	Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
4.	Personal observation of the item.
5.	J.F.C. Fuller, Bibliotheca Crowleyana: The Collection of J.F.C. Fuller, Sure Fire Press, Edmonds, WA, 1989.
6.

Comments by
Aleister
Crowley:

While at Akyab I wrote Ahab, which, with a few other poems, was published as a companion to Jezbel.
— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Page 273.

Reviews:

Mr. Crowley has amplified the Biblical narrative, has given to the savage figure of Ahab some-thing of the nobility of reason that rebels against the tyranny of his fate. There is a modern self-consciousness in this tragic, brooding monologue.

Mr. Aleister Crowley's previous work has been eccentric, and at the best he has done more to provoke curiosity than to give confidence. Now he chooses to handicap himself by printing his poems in a type that must inevitably impose restrictions upon many readers.

—The Manchester Guardian, date unknown.

______________________________

Mr. Aleister Crowley, not content with the usual risk of the neglect that threatens minor poets, has had his verse set up in what is apparently German black-letter. Thereby tempting the most conscientious reviewer to take his volume as read.

—The Glasgow Herald, date unknown.

______________________________

"Ahab and Other Poems", by Mr. Aleister Crowley is a sumptuous volume, delightful to eyes accustomed to mediaeval script, but puzzling to such as are not. The prettiest poem in the book is "The Dream," from which we give the opening lines:

"Bend down in dream the shadow-shape

Of tender breasts and bare!

Let the long locks of gold escape,

And cover me and fall and drape,

A pall of whispering hair!

And let the starry eyes look through

That mist of silken light

And lips drop forth their honey-dew

And gentle sighs of sleep renew

The scented winds of night."

In "Melusine" Mr. Crowley has caught something of the trick of reiteration of metaphor, which is familiar to all readers of Mr. Swinburne, e.g.

And like a devil-fish is ice,

And like a devil-fish is cruel,

And like a devil-fish is hate."

"Thule" is, in the same stanza, made to rhyme with "cruel"! The title-poem, which occupies two-thirds of the book, is a most unsatisfactorory performance, but it is superior in technique to the rest.

—The Westminster Review, August 1903.

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