On This Page
Description
This revised and expanded second edition brings together the uncollected short fiction of the poet, writer and religious philosopher Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). Of the fifty-four stories in the present volume, only thirty-five were published in his lifetime. Most of the rest appear in this collection for the first time. Crowley was a successful critic, editor and author of fiction from 1908 to 1922. Like their author, his stories are fun, smart, witty, thought-provoking and sometimes show more unsettling. They are set in places in which 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 accounts -- if not the first -- 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 that can stand with Samuel Butler's Erewhon. Frank Harris considered The Testament of Magdalen Blair the most terrifying tale ever written. This second edition adds several additional stories, including the Qabalistic allegory Ambrosii Magi Hortus Rosarum, featuring the author's previously unpublished annotations. Extensive editorial end-notes give full details about the stories. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
The extremely wide assortment of tales in The Drug and Other Stories includes some with a double role as technical instruction in magick or significant mythopoeia for Thelemic culture. These include Liber XLV “The Wake World,” a qabalistic fairy-tale; Liber LXI, “Tien Tao,” a political and psychological parable; Liber LI, “Atlantis: The Lost Continent,” an antediluvian mystery, and Liber LIX, “Across the Gulf,” a tale of Ankh-f-n-Khonsu in ancient Egypt. Many of the stories with contemporary settings and conventional narrative style feature actual persons and anecdotes from Crowley’s life only superficially fictionalized.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
502+ Works 19,819 Members
Aleister Crowley was born Edward Alexander Crowley in Leamington Spa, England on October 12, 1875. His parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a strict fundamentalist Christian sect, so he was raised with a thorough knowledge of the Bible. He attended Trinity College at Cambridge University, but left before completing his degree. He became a show more member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occult society which taught magic, qabalah, alchemy, tarot, and astrology, in 1898, but the group disbanded in 1900. In 1903, he married Rose Kelly, who began entering trance states and sending him messages from Horus, an Egyptian god. These messages formed the first three chapters of The Book of the Law, which introduced Crowley's main concept of Thelema. He founded his own occult society. He was a prolific writer, who published works on a wide variety of topics. His works include The Book of Thoth, The Vision and the Voice, 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings, The Book of Lies, Little Essays Toward Truth, and The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. He also wrote fiction including plays, novels, and poems. His fictional works include Moonchild, Diary of a Drug Fiend, The Stratagem and Other Stories, White Stains, Clouds without Water, and Hymn to Pan. Three of his compositions, The Quest, The Neophyte, and The Rose and the Cross were included in the 1917 collection The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. He died on December 1, 1947 at the age of 72. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
All Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Drug and Other Stories
- Original publication date
- 2010
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 245
- Popularity
- 132,082
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.83)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 3
