Obsolete Spells

A collection of rare pagan poetry and purple prose from the heart of the 1920s counterculture.Victor Neuburg is most famous for two things: discovering Dylan Thomas, and being the man that Aleister Crowley once turned into a camel. Obsolete Spells offers another side of Neuburg, through his own poems and the strange books of Vine Press, the hand-operated imprint he ran from his West Sussex cottage between 1920 and 1930. Neuburg''s youth involved terrifying-yet-farcical years as Crowley''s lover, victim, and magickal sidekick. His later period, as editor of the influential "Poet''s Corner" column for the Sunday Referee, found him a key figure in London''s literary scene. But in between, Neuburg acted as a conduit for bohemian writers, arts luminaries, and the sexually adventurous: Peter Warlock set his words to music, singer Marian Anderson lived in his spare room, and he was a fixture at utopian community, the Sanctuary. Through it all, he turned the handle on the Vine Press: books of nature writing and anonymous song; poems and artwork worthy of The Wicker Man, side-by-side with a book on cricket. Obsolete Spells offers a selection of Neuburg''s work and others from Vine Press books--over-the-top hymns to the Old Gods, tales from a utopian landscape, and more, most of which has been out of print for a century.

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