Collected Works of Aleister Crowley 1905-1907 - Collected Works Volume III 1907

Collected Works Volume III 1907

CONTENTS

The final volume of Aleister Crowley's collected works have a flamboyancy of style which will be seen in the following period of his editorial The Equinox. It collects his writings from 1904-1907. The contents appear less than the others only because the final work Orpheus was substantially long, taking up maybe 40% of the book.

CONTENTS

The Star and the Garter is a work that is similar to Alice, an Adultery, only this time the dilemma of the poet represents Crowley upon his wife discovering a prostitute's garter belt in his room, and Crowley, before their divorce, for the last time romanticising unbridled sex. Rosa Mundi was one of a trilogy of poems written for her (Rose Kelly) published under the pseudonym "H. D. Carr" after Katie Carr, the wife of French artist and sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) whom supplied water-colouring to the editions' sleeves. His works were also honoured by Crowley in the following Rodin in Rime (Rosa Inferni itself appears in Gargoyles, whilst Rosa Coelli was published possibly after this volume in 1907).

The last work to appear was Crowley's Orpheus: a Lyrical Legend and was meant to be his crowning work as a poet. As he points out in the introduction, not only was Crowley unhappy with the final product, its lengthy and uninspired creation from as far back as 1902 (uncommon in Crowley who was turbulent in his creative output) was also badly received from friends. But many would agree the pæan style in which Crowley glorifies these mythological characters was pertinent to his career as a conjuror of gods, and the many complicated rhyme schemes were if anything a signpost of the incantatory style of Crowley that is now stereotyped in witchcraft.

The chapters are

• LIBER PRIMUS VEL CARMINUM (Orpheus' tuning his lyre to antistrophe of various "elemental forces")

TO OSCAR ECKENSTEIN, with whom I have wondered in so many solitudes of nature, and thereby learnt the words and spells that bind her children

• LIBER SECUNDUS VEL AMORIS (Orpheus laments Eurydice's death)

TO MARY BEATON, whom I lament

• LIBER TERTIUS VEL LABORIS (Orpheus travels to Hades)

TO THE MEMORY OF IEHI AOUR, with whom I walked through Hell, and compelled it

• LIBER QUARTUS VEL MORTIS (Orpheus on Mt. Ida with the Mænads)

TO MY WIFE