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Correspondence from John Quinn to Aleister Crowley
April 15, 1915.
Dear Mr. Crowley:
(1) Re Manuscripts
As I have written you several times and as I wrote in mine of April 7th, at the time the subject of manuscripts was first mentioned you remarked that you had kept all your manuscripts or nearly all, and I said that I “might be interested in purchasing one or two or possibly three of your manuscripts”.
Later on the question of books came up and of your vellum copies, etc., and I said to you that I might be interested in looking at or buying one or two vellum copies. You then said something about bringing them all over here and asked my advice about duty, etc., and said that you thought of having them all catalogued here. I even suggested your making arrangements with some published about selling them.
Some time later, I think the evening that you came to my house to dine, you brought there on your own motion nine manuscripts, namely:
(1) Alice (4) The Argonauts (6) Oracles (8) Carmen Saeculare (9) The Book of Lies
I told you at the time that I could not determine if these manuscripts interested me and that I would refresh myself by looking at the copies of the books and see which of the manuscripts if any interested me. You then said that you would like to have me advance you $500. Frankly I was surprised at the request. But you said that you had a bill at the hotel and a dentist bill, both of which amounted together to some $450 or $460, and said that it would be a great favor if I could “advance you $599”. Which I did.
Surely conduct of that kind on my part ought not to let one in for an implication in regard to books or manuscripts that could have easily been avoided had I said to you “No, I am not going to pay anything until I determine which of your manuscripts I am interested in”. So it was a payment in advance of my selecting any manuscript.
Well, the nine manuscripts have been there since. I have been busy on other things. I have had no time to look at them until now. I have now looked at them, and I am returning you herewith six of them.
Four of the ones above-named, namely: “The Book of Lies”, “Carmen Saeculare”, “Ahab and Other Poems” and “The Argonauts” do not interest me.
Two others, namely, “Oracles” and “The Sword of Song”, are incomplete. If either one was complete, I should prefer one or the other of these, but they are not.
That reduces the matter down to three, namely, “The Soul of Osiris”, “The Mother’s Tragedy” and “Alice”. These are bound but if I had my choice about the matter I should prefer not to have them bound because in many cases the binding has made it somewhat difficult to read the manuscript, particularly so in the case of “The Mother’s Tragedy”. I should have preferred to have had them put in a slip-case or a solander-case.
In addition to the $500 which I advanced to you my bookkeeper, Mr. Watson, paid out on your behalf to A. G. Pritchard & Company $31 being freight charges, fee for consular invoice, fee for bond, etc., on the shipment of the manuscripts. That makes a total of $531. This is the suggestion that I make: that there be credited to you for “The Soul of Osiris” $200, for “The Mother’s Tragedy” $200, making $400, and for “Alice” $131. I think that is a fair amount for the three manuscripts. I am returning you herewith the other six. If you don’t think that the figures that I have allowed for the three are fair I shall be glad to hear from you.
As I told you at the time you asked me for the advance of $500 it is a very difficult thing to put a value on manuscripts. It is largely a matter of opinion or feeling or sentiment. One manuscript of yours is frankly all that I would care to have if anybody had offered it to me from the other side, or certainly two at the outside, and this I told you at the time you first mentioned the matter. I don’t think I would have paid as high as £40 for one of your manuscripts had it been offered to me by a dealer from the other side or by a dealer here.
As to the statement in yours of April 8th that I said to you that I pay “forty to seventy pounds for Conrad’s manuscripts”, I don’t want to be quoted on the subject but I never paid seventy pounds for any single manuscript of Conrad’s. The highest I ever paid for a manuscript of Conrad’s was sixty pounds for the complete manuscript of a novel. You won’t agree with me of course but the complete manuscript of a novel by Joseph Conrad would I should say be valued by any competent expert at much more than a manuscript by you.
I have bought several Gissing manuscripts for twenty-five and thirty pounds, that is a complete manuscript of a complete novel.
So much for the manuscripts. If you differ with me in regard to anyone of these items you will of course say so frankly.
(2) As to your books
As I have heretofore several times written you I never agreed to take a complete set of your books. It would be an absurdity for me to agree to any such a thing for various reasons and particularly because you never till yours of April 8th quoted me prices on any one or all of them and never told me the number of them or the number of copies of each or gave me any details about them, but on the other hand you asked me twice as a pure business matter and as a friendly thing about the duty on them and about bringing them over and about having them catalogued and about making them interesting and attractive from a bibliophile’s point of view and said that “quite an interesting bibliography could be prepared from them.” I never agreed to take a set of them in vellum because I already have a set on ordinary and hand-made paper. The misunderstanding on your part was completely dealt with and disposed of in letters that passed between you and me two or three months ago. There any feasibility of misunderstanding should have ended.
Now as to the books that you quoted in yours of April 8th to me, I am not especially strong on morocco bindings. For example, I have several Kelmscott books on all vellum none of which are bound. I have Mosher Press books all vellum, none bound. I have Doves Press books all vellum, none bound.
Referring to the item “The World's Tragedy” which you write is complete with pages 37 and 38 included, 10 guineas, does that mean for the volume on hand-made paper or is that a vellum copy?
You might send to me on approval No. 15 “Oracles” all vellum, bound as described, and “The Sword of Song” all vellum, one of three copies.
I don’t feel like having or offering 25 guineas for “Oracles” on vellum, or anything like 40 guineas for “The Sword of Song”, one of three. If you wish to send the two on approval subject to an offer from me, I will look at them and make an offer.
As to your feeling that if I once saw the collection I “would realize what an utterly unique collection the whole makes, both in typography and binding, to say nothing of the bibliographical interest”, I have heretofore told you and have written to you two or three times that I am not interested in the collection as a whole and that I never contemplated buying or agreed to buy the collection as a whole. As I told you when you first mentioned the books and as I have written you several times, I might be interested in one or two or three of those on vellum provided the process are reasonable. That was all there was about it. There is no use repeating to me about the uniqueness of the collection or anything of that sort. I don’t want to jew you down on prices or anything of that sort either. But money is money these days and I am not in the market to buy sets of vellum books and am not buying vellum books. I have bought fewer books this winter than I ever have any season these last ten years.
Your phrase “I only want to live” has the implication that you have been financially embarrassed. Well, I am sorry if you have been, but it is not a responsibility of mine in any way, shape or manner. As I wrote you before, I wasn’t consulted about your coming out here, didn’t underwrite in any way your visit here, didn’t make any promise regarding it either before you came or since you came, nor did you come here in reliance upon selling either books or manuscripts to me. The whole damned manuscript question (and I am sorry I ever mentioned it) is due to the fact that casually one day I happened to mention the subject of manuscripts, and then you mentioned yours, and the talk was as I have detailed it above. That led to books, and I then mentioned also casually that I might be interested in one or two of your velum books if the prices were reasonable. Those two casual talks were no foundation to build the whole structure of your visit on or to write me that you “only want to live.”
This has been a winter of hard-luck tales and a time when appeals have been made that it was hard to resist on the merits. I have had to help out old and dear friends of mine who have had genuine hard luck, people whom I really wanted to help or felt under obligation to help. With all the good-will in the world to you I feel under no obligation whatever to help you. One might as well write frankly about it and I do so because I am told that you have said that “there was something on business matters between you and me to settle.” I have made it quite plain that there was no outstanding business matter between you and me excepting the return of such of the manuscripts as I did not care to keep. I want to dispose of it one way or the other.
There is no feeling back of this letter and it is dictated at the close of a very trying and hard day and only with a desire to end all necessity for further discussion or further writing about books, or manuscripts except about the three manuscripts and the books referred to in this letter.
Yours very truly,
John Quinn
Aleister Crowley, Esq., 40 West 36th Street, New York City.
P.S. Frankly I am allowing you more for these three manuscripts referred to in this letter, as I have said, than I would pay a dealer for them. One of Aleister Crowley’s manuscripts is all that I would be interested in from a dealer.
Secondly, when you mentioned your books I suggested that you make arrangements with some publisher here for the sale of your books or for the stock that you referred to. I recall your telling me that you had “several thousands of dollars locked up in those editions”. There are people here who might possibly be interested in your vellum editions. One of them is James F. Drake of the Association Book Company, 4 West 40th Street. Another is Walter M. Hill of the Marshall Field Building, Chicago, Illinois. Each one of these dealers has customers who buy books with fancy bindings or vellum editions or limited editions or first editions.
I am sorry, as I have said, if the plans with which you came here or your expectations have not materialized. As to the books, I should have much preferred to buy the vellum copies unbound or in their original binding. Mr. Kennerley will tell you that I don’t go in especially for bindings. I have several of the Kelmscott books on all vellum but in every case in their original binding. I have nearly all of the Doves Press books on vellum, and in every case in the original binding. I have never paid more than twelve guineas for an all vellum Doves Press book except in one or two special cases where fifteen guineas was the outside.
Yours very truly,
John Quinn
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