New "rare and lovely" short stories from the "wickedest man in the world"

British poet and artist David Tibet, in a foreword to the new edition, says that Crowleys stories are overdue a reassessment. It is time to reassess these witty, strange and occasionally very dark works as the rare and lovely jewels they are, he writes, comparing Crowleys story The Stratagem to Ray Bradbury and Jorge Luis Borges.

The difficulty of accessing the pieces collected here for the first time scattered as they were through obscure journals such as the Equinox or the International or appearing in extremely rare first editions has prevented their author from being reassessed as a remarkable and idiosyncratic short-story writer of the highest order, according to Tibet. If Crowleys wit is not quite as consistently barbed as that of Saki it certainly covers a wider range of social (and sexual!) situations.