The Valley of Fear, Austin Osman Spare
Limited to 700 hand-numbered copies bound in green cloth with dust jacket, of which this is number 207. As one of the major ‘lost’ works, The Valley of Fear is an unpublished sketchbook of 20 vigorous yet haunting studies from this bleak and difficult period. Designed as a companion volume to The Book of Ugly Ecstasy (Fulgur, 1996), here the delicately tinted original drawings have been reproduced in full color. The work has been augmented by an introductory essay by Robert Ansell in which the metaphysical themes are explored and Spare’s methodologies for creating states of magical aesthesis for his audience are examined and discussed.
London: Fulgur Limited, 2008. Bound in full green cloth; pp. xi + 19 full page drawings. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket, protected in archival mylar.