The Legend of Aleister Crowley

Percy Reginald Stephensen was a young Australian who went to Britain as a Rhodes Scholar to study at Oxford. He became manager of the Mandrake Press of London in the 1920s. The much younger Stephensen eagerly signed up the middle aged Magus Aleister Crowley. According to Stephensen, he made what he called his own style of "magical oath"
to get Crowley's writings into print, and defend the 'Great Beast'
against the allegations and accusations levied at him by a hostile British press. Stephensen would describe The Legend of Aleister Crowley as both a "short literary biography" and "a study of the documentary evidence relating to a campaign of personal vilification unparalleled in literary history." Crowley dedicated his Confessions to Stephensen: To PRS who saw the point.

Our edition, titled The Legend of Aleister Crowley by P.R. Stephensen and Aleister Crowley, includes for the first time the opening "Epistle" that was suppressed from the first edition as being too risky.

It also comes with a comprehensive introductory narrative by Stephen J. King, a senior member and archivist of the Australian O.T.O., that provides the background to The Legend, and examines the press campaigns against Crowley, the history of the Mandrake Press, the Stephensen/Crowley collaboration, and Stephensen's ongoing association with Crowley's colleagues Karl Germer, Gerald Yorke and Israel Regardie after Crowley's death. Also included is a substantial collection of Aleister Crowley's autobiographical newspaper articles, 1933-35, the vast majority of which have never appeared in print since their original publication. A number of Crowley and Stephensen collections were consulted in preparing this edition, including access to the O.T.O. International Headquarters central archives, providing the reader with new research and information about this important period in Crowley's life.

The Legend of Aleister Crowley has long been out of print. This new edition makes available an important if often overlooked book—the only biography written during Crowley's life that addressed his character and the press campaigns against him.