HARRIS, Frieda, & Aleister Crowley.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Thoth Tarot Cards. First full-colour edition of the tarot deck designed by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris and printed posthumously. The Book of Thoth is Crowley's last major work and one of the most significant works on the tarot. Crowley invited Frieda Harris (1877-1962) to design the deck in 1937, when she began taking lessons in divination from him and joined the Ordo Templi Orientis. They began work the following year, expecting the project to take six months; it became a five-year undertaking. "She devoted her genius to the Work", remarked Crowley in his introduction to the Book of Thoth. "With incredible rapidity she picked up the rhythm, and with inexhaustible patience submitted to the correction of the fanatical slave-driver that she had invoked, often painting the same card as many as eight times until it measured up to his Vanadium Steel yardstick". In 1944, Crowley published The Book of Thoth, his guide to the deck.This copy is the White Box A issue, exhibiting all the identifying points: the pale blue border appears on the face but is absent from the reverse; the "Eight of Cups" card lacks a number in the upper margin; the illustration on the "Ace of Disks" card is printed upside down; and the Caliph card bears "Box 2043", a detail altered in subsequent printings.

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