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Correspondence from Gerald Yorke to Philip Kaplan
5, Montagu Square, W.1.
Welbeck 6709.
14 March 1956
Dear Mr. Kaplan.
Your 7 March. Many many thanks for the photostats of letters. I wonder where the others to A G Murray [Adam Murray] have got to: he died of starvation about 1926. I have all those written contemporaneously to Murray's colleague Norman Mudd. The Viereck [George Sylvester Viereck] letter was of great interest as throwing light on A.C.'s editorship of The International. Have you any more of the Viereck correspondence? The New Orleans letter was nice. I already had a copy of the one to Louis Wilkinson.
The Liber Aleph typescript that you bought was one of my duplicates. The typescript of Louis Wilkinson's letters (or rather those of A.C. to him) was a copy made by me for him, when I copied them for my collection.
I am most interested to learn that you are a friend of Sam Jacobs [Samuel Jacobs]. Please ask him if he has kept A.C.'s letters to him, and whether you can have photostats made of them. You could then send the photostats for me to type copies from, and then return for your own collection. Crowley regarded him (I could never quite understand why) as an important proof of the existence of the 'praeterhuman intelligence' Aiwas, who A.C. alleged dictated the Book of the Law to him (A.C.) When Jacobs wrote to A.C. out of the blue and gave him the correct cabalistic spelling of Aiwas, A.C. would have written him an enthusiastic letter in return. I would be most interested to get a copy of it. Do ask Sam Jacobs if he remembers the incident.
A.C.'s paintings and drawings. I have one oil painting several water colours and a number of drawings. I have a copy of the German catalogue of the exhibition of his work at the Sforza galleries in Berlin, and also a typed list of the paintings etc exhibited in New York 1917 or 1918, I forget which. I could send you on loan for copy the German catalogue if you like. All pictures shown at Berlin and the remainder of the stock in A.C.'s possession was all destroyed by the Nazis. His work is therefore difficult to fins.
I think Evans [Montgomery Evans] 19 pp list of books is a carbon of one of my lists made several years ago.
I would very much appreciate a photostat of the stage plan from you MS of Mortaldello.
The expense of photostating diaries would be large. You can appreciate the bulk of the material from my catalogue, a copy of which is on its way to you by slow mail on loan. Probably the best thing to do is to wait until an Australian collector copies my typescripts, and I could arrange for him to do a carbon for you.
If you have not got it, write to Book of the Month Club, 345 Hudson Street, New York for a free copy of "The Magician" by Gilbert Highet. This oddly enough is a Crowley item. It is of course mostly nonsense, but should be in ones collection.
I look forward with interest to the list of what you have (see my long letter with the material sent by slow mail.
Send me a list of your wants in the published book line (quoting numbers in my printed bibliography), I will then keep an eye out for them. But I am not a dealer myself.
Sincerely
Gerald Yorke
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