NETHERWOOD: LAST RESORT OF ALEISTER CROWLEY

First revised edition, (the second edition overall). Signed by the author. Limited edition. Publisher's original illustrated boards. White wraparound band. Illustrated with four pages of colour and 24 black and white throughout. Loosely laid in is a blue glassine envelope with three inserts (reproduction of two Netherwood guesthouse brochures and a postcard of 'Netherwood', Hastings), as issued. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout and without previous owners' marks. The thin wraparound band has a short closed tear and is otherwise without loss or tears.

Issued in a limited edition of 500 copies, this example is hand-numbered 217 and is signed by 'A Gentleman from Hastings', Antony Clayton in black ink on the title page. The book tells the story of a remarkable Hastings guesthouse that around the middle of the last century was home to visiting politicians, scientists, intellectuals and radicals. It was also where the master magician Aleister Crowley, so-called 'Wickedest Man in the World', spent his final years, playing chess, injecting heroin and receiving an impressive cast of visitors, including Kenneth Grant, Gerald Gardner, Augustus John, James Laver and Richard Ellmann.