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Correspondence from John Quinn to Aleister Crowley
Jany. 5, 1915.
Dear Mr. Crowley:
Mr. Watson has told me of your call this afternoon.
Please don’t be under any misapprehension as to my buying books of you. You voluntarily agreed to bring some books over to show me vellum copies, etc. But I haven’t agreed to buy any. I don’t know that I want to buy any. These are not times when people are spending much money on books. I might care to buy one or two, but at present I don’t care to buy any and I have no present intention of buying any. If I buy one or two manuscripts, for which I have already paid you in advance $500, that is all I can spare now. I haven’t any money to spare for extra copies of books. I never promised to buy any books of you. You said you had some vellum books and that you were going to bring them over for the purposes of cataloguing and possibly of sale. I assume that you meant sale to whom it might concern. But certainly I didn’t agree to buy all the books you were bringing over or any part of them or any one of them. The same applies to the manuscripts. If times were different, I might feel differently. But I want you clearly to understand that you mustn’t look to me for any considerable quantity of money in addition to the $500 that I have already advanced you on account of the manuscripts. It is well to have things definitely put down, and Mr. Watson’s statement to me of what you said to him this afternoon is the first intimation that I had that you were counting upon any further money from me, which you must not do.
Yours very truly,
John Quinn
Aleister Crowley, Esq., 40 West 36th Street, New York City.
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