(P/B) THE DRUG

Παρουσίαση

This volume brings together the uncollected short fiction of the poet, writer and religious philosopher Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). Crowley was a successful critic, editor and author of fiction from 1908 to 1922, and his short stories are long overdue for discovery. Of the forty-nine stories in the present volume, only thirty were published in his lifetime. Most of the rest appear here for the first time. Like their author, Crowley's stories are fun, smart, witty, thought-provoking and sometimes unsettling. They are set in places he had lived and knew well: Belle Epoque Paris, Edwardian London, pre-revolutionary Russia and America during the first World War.
The title story "The Drug" stands as one of the first - if not the first - accounts of a psychedelic experience. His "Black and Silver" is a knowing early noir discovery that anticipates an entire genre. "Atlantis" is a masterpiece of occult fantasy, a dark satire that can stand with Samuel Butler's "Erewhon". Frank Harris considered "The Testament of Magdalen Blair" the most terrifying tale ever written. Extensive editorial end-notes give full details about the stories. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
THE DRUG AND OTHER STORIES
The Three Characteristics
The Wake World
T'ien Tao
The Stone of the Philosophers
The Drug
Cancer?
At the Fork of the Roads
The Dream Circean
Illusion d' Amoureux
The Soul-Hunter
The Daughter of the Horseleech
The Violinist
The Vixen
The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon
Apollo Bestows the Violin
Across the Gulf
His Secret Sin
The Woodcutter
Professor Zircon
The Vitriol-Thrower
The Testament of Magdalen Blair
Ercildoune
The Stratagem
Lieutenant Finn's Promotion
The Chute
A Death Bed Repentance
Felo de Se
The Argument that Took the Wrong Turning
Robbing Miss Horniman
Face
Which Things are an Allegory
The Crime of the Impasse de l' Enfant Jesus
Atlantis
The Mysterious Malady
The Bald Man
Black and Silver
The Humour of Pauline Pepper
A Nativity
Every Precaution
God's Journey
The Colour of My Eyes
Dedit!
Colonel Pacton's Brother
The Vampire of Vespuccia
As You Were!
Only a Dog
The Virgin
A Masque
The Escape
NOTES AND SOURCES