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Correspondence from Michael Sadleir [Constable & Co., Publishers of Laughing Torso] to Charles Harper [Waterhouse & Co., Solicitors for Constable & Co.]
[Correspondence concerning Constable & Co.'s preparation for the libel suit brought by Aleister Crowley against Nina Hamnett and the publication of her book Laughing Torso.]
February 5th 1934
Dear Harper,
Jones was kind enough to send me up for bibliographical examination the copy of WHITE STAINS and I was horrified to find on receipt of it that someone had pasted on to the cloth cover a paper label heavily inked with Hilbery's name. This book cost eleven guineas and is a very rare collectors item, and is now practically ruined by having been treated in this way. The paper can be got off but the label mark is ineradicable and a mark of this sort on a cloth binding has an effect on the book's value which can hardly be credited.
I spoke to Pullen about this and he promised to find out how the thing occurred. I am really very upset about this not only because the book was a valuable one and cost us a lot of money, but also because it was so wholly unnecessary and the thing ought, in any event, to have had a paper cover on it to protect the cloth from damages, and has now been deliberately defaced.
I am forced to lay particular stress on all this because at Jones request I borrowed from a friend of mine a copy of the lecture which Crowley was to have given at Oxford but was stopped from giving thanks to (I think) Father Ronald Knox. I do not think the text of the lecture will help us much, but it is as well that it should be looked at in case it be of use.
This pamphlet does not even belong to Constable's and I do therefore beg of you most earnestly to see that it is not in any way defaced or torn and is kept clean.
Yours sincerely,
C.J.S. Harper Esq., 10-12 Bishopsgate, E.C.
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