Monday-Sunday 11.00-18.30 19-21 Cecil Ct, London WC2N 4EZ, UK

The Sea Priestess (1st edition) by Dion Fortune (from the library of Kenneth Grant)




First edition, first impression, from the library of Kenneth Grant, an influential student of Aleister Crowley, with his ownership inscription on the front free endpaper and occasional marginal pencil marks. He published prolifically, providing both explanations of and expansions to Crowley's writings, most famously through his "Typhonian Trilogies". 

Violet Mary Firth (1890-1946), known as Dion Fortune, is recognised alongside Crowley as one of the most important modern British occult writers. The Sea Priestess is the highly acclaimed novel in which Dion Fortune introduces her most powerful fictional character, Vivien Le Fay Morgan a practicing initiate of the Hermetic Path. Vivien has the ability to transform herself into magical images, and here she becomes Morgan Le Fay, sea priestess of Atlantis and foster daughter to Merlin! Desperately in love with Vivien, Wilfred Maxwell works by her side at an isolated seaside retreat, investigating these occult mysteries. They soon find themselves inextricably drawn to an ancient cult through which they learn the esoteric significance of the magnetic ebb and flow of the moontides.


Condition: Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, top edge blue. Book mark loosely inserted. Spine cocked and sunned, toning to board edges, offsetting to endpapers, contents clean. No dustjacket. A very good copy.



If you like this, you might also like: