The Fun of the Fair

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THE FUN OF THE FAIR

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Title:

The Fun of the Fair.

Upper Cover

Lower Cover

Interior Cover

Title Page

Frontispiece

Limitation Page

Dedication

Errata Slip

Landed Gentry

Page 2 (Folded)

Landed Gentry

Page 2 (Unfolded)

Political Vote

(Folded)

Political Vote

(Unfolded)

Prospectus Front

Prospectus Back

Print

Variations:

200 copies printed on mould-made rag paper.¹

Bound in thick gray paper wrappers.¹

Upper cover lettered in red ‘THE FUN OF THE FAIR | by | ALEISTER CROWLEY’.

The limitation page states that copies are signed, only a small number actually were, usually under the frontispiece portrait.¹

Numbered with a mechanical stamp.¹

10” x 6 1/4”.²

Publisher:

Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).²

Printer:

Chiswick Press Ltd., London, N. 11.²

Published At:

Rancho RoyAL, Route 1, Barstow, Cal., U.S.A. and at 93 Jermyn Street, London, S.W.1.²

Date:

22 December 1942, 11.31 a.m.²

Edition:

1st Edition.

Pages:

vii + 24.²

Price:

Priced at 1 guinea.²

Remarks:

This book was bound to match Crowley's The City of God.

Has a portrait of Crowley by Cambyses Daguerre Churchill as a frontispiece.

Some copies have an errata slip tipped on to the half title page.

Some copies have a mimeographed sheet that contains the piece “Political Vote. B----Y Secret” and the poem “Landed Gentry” tipped in at the rear of the book. Crowley had tried to get these poems included in the body of the book, but had been rebuffed by several printers who feared that they would be prosecuted for publishing anything that might be considered anti-government propaganda under the strict wartime censorship laws. Eventually Crowley hit upon the ploy of having a mainstream printer produce the books, and having the “dubious poems” duplicated by a jobbing printer. He then had the extra poems tipped into the rear of some of the copies of the books. The copies with extra poems tend to be those that were distributed in Britain during Crowley's lifetime (which were also normally signed by him). Those copies that were sent for distribution in America via Agape Lodge, or after his death, generally did not include the poems, probably because they were largely of local significance to the UK although Crowley may also have concerned that if sent abroad they would have been subject to increased censorial examination, and possibly confiscation.⁵

Distribution:

—Copy #0 was among the inventory conducted by Kenneth Grant of Crowley's Books at Netherwood.”⁴

—Copy #3 went to Karl Germer with an inscription by Crowley which read “To my best of brothers devotedly, with will to his enduring happiness, the Traveler Aleister Crowley.”⁶

—Copy #4 went to Sascha Germer with an inscription by Crowley which read “My dear Sascha! that I can offer you no worthier wedding present than this book. But all my heart—for what that may be worth!—goes with it. May this, however seedling though it is, prove earnest of a happier harvest! Yours Aleister. No 4.”⁶

—Copy #5 went to Louis Umfreville Wilkinson with an inscription by Crowley which read ‘My dear Louis Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law Guess who begat the authentic heir to Pan! “A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.” Love is the law, love under will. Yours for more than thirty years, Aleister’.³

—Copy #8 went to Lady Frieda Harris with an inscription from Crowley which read ‘To Soror Tzba for a hidden device... from her devoted fellow-worker who is The Great Beast 666 Aleister Crowley’¹⁰

—Copy #9 went to Gerald Yorke with an inscription from Crowley. This copy currently resides in the Warburg Institute.⁹

—Copy #13 went to Mrs. Pearl Brook-Smith with an inscription from Crowley which read ‘. . . to my own sweet Eve. . .’⁷

—Copy #13 (again) went to Cordelia Sutherland with an inscription from Crowley which read ‘. . . to my blessed benefactress, Cordelia. . .’⁸

—Copy #52 went to Ben Stubbins.¹³

—Copy #55 went to “Mrs. Harris.”¹¹

—Copy #56 went to Dr. Brown Thomson.¹²

—Copy #73 went to Grady. McMurtry with the inscription "To my brother Grady L. McMurtry. Most welcome visitor to 93 Jermyn St. Oct 30, '43 E.V. Aleister Crowley".¹⁴

Pagination:²

Page(s)
[ i]	Half-title
[ ii]	Preface
[ iii]	Blank
[ iv]	Cut
[ v]	Title-page
[ vi]	Dedication
[ vii]	Preface by Louis Marlow
[ viii]	Blank
[1-23]	Text
[ 24]	Limitation notice, Colophon ‘Printed in England \| by Chiswick Press Ltd., London, N. 11 Portrait by Cambyses Daguerre Churchill \| Temple Bar 5788.’

Contents:

Author’s

Working

Versions:

Other

Known

Editions:

Bibliographic

Sources:

1.	Gerald Yorke, “A Bibliography of the Works of Aleister Crowley” (Expanded and Corrected by Clive Harper from Aleister Crowley, the Golden Dawn and Buddhism: Reminiscences and Writings of Gerald Yorke, Keith Richmond, editor, The Teitan Press, York Beach, ME, 2011, p. 48.
2.	Personal observation of the item.
3.	Call No. PR 6005 R7 F8 1942 - Copy 2. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
4.	Kenneth Grant, Remembering Aleister Crowley, Skoob Books Publishing, London, 1991, p. 54.
5.	Weiser Antiquarian Books, On-Line Catalog # 117, “Aleister Crowley and Circle. A Miscellany of Used and Rare Books and Ephemera.”
6.	Bill Heidrick, Thelema Lodge Calendar, November 1997, Internet resource last accessed on 27 November 2015.
7.	Call No. PR6005.R88 F8 1942. Bird Library, Special Collections, University of Syracuse, Syracuse, New York.
8.	Call No. PR6005.R88 F8 1942 c.2. Bird Library, Special Collections, University of Syracuse, Syracuse, New York.
9.	Call No. EMH 1160.F85. Warburg Institute, University of London.
10.	Sotheby's Auction, 28 January 1999, Sale L09201, Lot 523.
11.	Aleister Crowley, Diary entry for 21 June 1944, unpublished.
12.	Aleister Crowley, Diary entry for 2 September 1943, unpublished.
13.	Letter from Aleister Crowley to Ben Stubbins, dated 1 January 1943. Warburg Institute, University of London, NS 113.
14.	Baphonet Internet Resource, https://archives.bapho.net/C/C0000195/s0000002b.gif.

Comments by

Aleister

Crowley:

From early boyhood my imagination had been excited by accounts of the Great Fair at Nijni Novgorod. Finding “the time and the place and the loved one all together”, at the cost of a slight effort, I decided to trot off and see “The Fun of the Fair”, by which title I called the poem in which I describe my excursion. The way in which I wrote it is, I imagine, unique in literature. I wrote down in heroic couplets every incident of the adventure exactly as it occurred and when it occurred. The only variation is that occasionally I permit myself to exaggerate the facts (as in enumerating the races of men whom I met) when the spirit of humour takes charge.

This poem should have appeared in the English Review in the autumn of 1914. It was pushed out to make way for my “Appeal to the American Republic”, reprinted from boyhood’s happy days, with such politically necessary revisions as “the traitor Prussian” instead of “the traitor Russian”. It has thus never yet seen the light.

— The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969. Pages 716-717.

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