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Correspondence from Gerald Yorke to Philip Kaplan
5 Montagu Square London. W.1.
1 March 1956
Dear Mr. Kaplan.
Legman has done me a good turn by putting us in touch.
I enclose as a gift a photograph of my old friend, and a reproduction of a drawing of him done at the same time by Augustus John: also his Hymn to Pan as a Xmas card from one of his Canadian disciples, and a prospectus for The Wine of the Graal, which was published later under the title Little Essays Towards Truth: also a prospectus for 777 Revised which has just been published over here and is still on the market. These are duplicates as far as I am concerned. I can also give you 40(a) [Songs for Italy, Tunis 1923] and (b) [Songs for Italy, London 1923] in my bibliography, but you probably have them, as I sold some to [G. F.] Sims [book dealer]: also An Open Letter to Lord Beaverbrook by Mudd [Norman Mudd], one of A.C.'s disciples: A.C. vetted it before publication.
Montgomery Evans loaned me A.C.'s letters to him to copy, which I did, and then returned the originals to Evans, I will type a copy for you and send it to you, since as you have his diaries, you should have copies of these letters.
I am sending you by ordinary post on loan a copy of the catalogue of my Crowley collection and of my bibliography revised to date. This includes newspaper and magazine articles etc. You want to look out for The International (pp 28-31 of bibliography): I have ticked the numbers which I possess. The list of pseudonyms that he used will also interest you. Copy any of this that you like, and then return to me. If you know or hear of any items not recorded by me, please give me the details.
Could you also please send me a list of all your MS material: then I can check whether it exists in typescript form, and if not record it. Should an item be new to me, would you have it copied or photostated for me?
You will find the catalogue of the Quinn [John Quinn] sale (Anderson Galleries 1924) of interest, items 2155 to 2221 dealing with Crowley. The prices make one's mouth water.
On p 22 of this typescript bibliography that I am posting to you on loan you will find 'multigraphed editions'. These are typescripts reproduced photographically and then printed. You ought to get, if you have not already done so, The Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw. The others come under your heading 'hocus-pocus'. You can get them from Karl Germer, Hampton, New Jersey. He is head of the Thelemites in U.S.A.: they are done by his Thelema Publishing Company, Barstow, California.
Then the Thelemites in Switzerland are publishing German translations each Equinox. To be complete you should get these, as well as their broadsheet of the Hymn to Pan in German. Their address is Genossenschaft Psychosophia, Postfach 138, Zurich 55. Their edition of The Book of the Law is in German and English.
Could you possibly have all the Crowley letters you possess either copied or sent to me for copy and return? I can in return let you have typescripts of twice the number of letters for you to copy and return. I have some 5000 typescript copies of Letters.
Dr Kinsey of the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University, will probably arrange for the photostating over here of all Crowley's diary material in my possession. Do you want to come in on this and have a second copy made at your expense? If so, let me know. The only trouble is that you might be unlucky and get the material seized by the customs your end as indecent and obscene—which some of it is. Kinsey's set for the Institute of Sex Research will get through as scientific material.
Let me repeat, how glad I am that we are in touch.
The God-Eater. It is the wrong way round in my bibliography. Watts and Company is the normal version, and it is recorded as Watts and Company in Crowley's own bibliography at the end of Vol 3 of his Collected Works. I have not seen another copy of my variant Chas. Watts and Co. But of course there may be others.
Yours sincerely
G. J. Yorke
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