From: ss10040@hermes.cam.ac.uk (sunny)]
To: alt.magick.chaos
Subject: Re: A O Spare's works
Date: 49950227

_From the Inferno to Zos_ is a moderately good attempt at a collected
works. It is a good start for a Spare initiate. Since you don't mention the
name of the other anthology I can't help you on it. There was an anthology
published in the mid-80s by The Sorceror's Apprentice Press (UK) which was
good mainly for the essay "Spare Parts" by Lionell Snell. This excellent
introduction to the Book of Pleasure was originally published in Agape 2 in
the 1970s and was one of the seminal essays that informed the Chaos
current. However, the anthology is poor in that the reproduction is not up
to scratch. I believe that the quality of reproduction ought to play an
important part in your decision of anthology. Also, the Sorceror's
Apprentice "Collected Works" lacks _A Book of Satyrs_. 

As far as I am aware, no anthology or collected works of AOS is complete.
No anthology contains _The Witches Sabbath/Axiomata_ which was published by
Fulgur in 1992 and is a crucial text in the Spare canon. Other works such
as _The Bookplate Desgins of AOS_ or _The Later Work of AOS_ are also not
republished. _Now for Reality_ is, in my opinion, a poor attempt to marry
Crowley and Spare. It contains the text of _The Focus of Life_ along with
some Crowley poetry, and is more aimed at Crowley bibliophiles than Spare
enthusiasts, who might well disagree with such an unholy union...(!) _Poems
and Masks_ was not, if my memory serves me correctly, written by Spare but
he produced some of the artwork for it. Other places to look for Spare's
work, especially his artistic output, would be the literary journals he
edited, namely _Form_ and _The Golden Hind_, which are both neglected. Also
consider _The Divine Draughtsman_ , a catalogue from a 1987 exhibition
which contains three splendid essays on AOS and some great artwork. There
are other Spare works, but my memory fails me at present. If you have
further queries, e-mail me.

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