The Stratagem and Other Stories

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THE STRATAGEM AND OTHER STORIES

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Title:

The Stratagem and Other Stories.

Upper Cover

Lower Cover

Spine

Interior Cover

Dust Jacket

Spine

Dust Jacket

Inner Rear

Title Page

Dedication

Printer

Print

Variations:

Bound in quarter black cloth with patterned boards of a gold on black design of serpent skin.²

Spine has a paper label that reads ‘The | Stratagem | Aleister | Crowley’.²

6” x 4 5/16”.²

Publisher:

The Mandrake Press, 41 Museum Street W.C.⁴

Printer:

The Crypt House Press Limited, Glouchester and London.⁴

Published At:

London.¹

Date:

10 September 1929.^{3,
5}

Edition:

1st Edition.

Pages:

140.²

Price:

Priced at 3 shillings and sixpence.⁴

Remarks:

Dedicated to "Joseph Conrad, who applauded the first story; Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya, who suggested the second, and Eugene John Wieland, who bowled me out over the third."

Pagination:²

Page(s)
[ 1]	Half-title
[ 2]	Blank
[ 3]	Title-page
[ 4]	Blank
[ 5]	Dedication
[ 6]	Blank
[ 7]	Contents
[ 8]	Blank
[9-45]	Text
[ 46]	Blank
[47-139]	Text
[140]	Colophon ‘Printed and Made in Great Britain by \| The Crypt House Press Limited, Gloucester and London.’
[141-142]	Blank

Contents:

- The Stratagem

- The Testament of Magdalen Blair

- His Secret Sin

Author’s

Working

Versions:

Other

Known

Editions:

+	"His Secret Sin" appeared in The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 8, Wieland and Co., London, September 1912.
+	"The Testament of Magdalen Blair" appeared in The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 9, Wieland and Co., London, March 1913.
+	"The Stratagem" appeared in The English Review, London, June 1914.
+	"The Stratagem" appeared in The Smart Set, New York, September 1916.

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. 50.
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, pp. 125-126.
3.	Richard Kaczynski, Ph.D., Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2010, p. 442.
4.	Personal observation of the item.
5.	P.R. Stephensen, The Legend of Aleister Crowley, Helios Books, Enmore, NSW, Australia, p. 33.

Comments by

Aleister

Crowley:

Reviews:

The Mandrake Press issue, at 3s. 6d. each, NEW DOSTOEVSKY LETTERS, translated by S. S. Koteliansky; THE STRATAGEM, by Aleister Crowley; A DIVER WENT DOWN, by Jack McLaren; THE BLOOMSBURY WONDER, by Thomas Burke; THE CENCI, by Sir Lionel Cust; and THE OLD TRIBUTE, by the Hon. R. Erskine of Marr. These are nicely got up little books, but in view of the contents the price must be called excessive. Mr. McLaren alone stumbles into genius with his queer, forcible story. The rest are no better if no worse than the usual contributions to serious periodicals, except Mr. Crowley's "Stratagem and other Stories," which only a very undergraduate paper would have taken.

—The Manchester Guardian, 12 November 1929

______________________________

Three short stories are included in this little volume and of them “The Testament of Magdalen Blair” is the most ambitious. Magdalen Blair has a peculiar ability to read thoughts, and the results of her power are devastating. One rises gradually to a crescendo of horror, and cannot help feeling relieved when passing on to the third story, “His Secret Sin,” an indictment of the attitude of a certain class of mind toward the beautiful.

“The Stratagem,” which opens the book, is distinguished by an exaggerated humour which is attractive.

—The Sheffield Daily Independent, 30 September 1929

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