THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

To: alt.magick
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: DeLaurence Publishing (was Re: Heidrick
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 20:30:05 GMT

Satyr wrote:
> 
> heidrick@well.com (Bill Heidrick) writes:
> 
> > Maybe De Laurence himself, maybe somebody
> > connected to Plumber scribed it.
> 
> Plumber? I'm afraid you lost me there.

Me too. Who is Plumber?

> One point that suggests an author other than de Laurence -
> admittedly rather weak - is, why the somewhat conservative 
> date of 1880? Given the publisher's tendency to exaggeration, 
> a much older date would seem to have served his purposes better.

I know of no instance of DeLaurence faking a date (unless
what he was reprinting had come to him with a faked date, of
which i am uncertain). 

DeLaurence (and the mysterious Scott, who appears as his
co-publisher in some early editions) pirated books and
DeLaurence claimed on the title pages to be their authors
(most famously with Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot), but
in this case, he did not sign his own name, which is
atypical for him. I therefore assume that he is not the
author. 

The problem with DeLaurence is that he cannot simply be
dismissed as a book pirate. In addition to the pirated
volumes, he apparently did write some of the books for which
he claimed authorship -- but some, as is obvious from
textual analysis, were ghost-written for him.
(Alternatively, *all* of the non-pirated books were
ghost-written, but by several hands.) 

As i have discussed here before with Poke Runyon, no one has
yet produced an extensive annotated bibliography of the
DeLaurence books, nor assigned actual or even tentative
authorship to them. The DeLaurence family still controls the
company and lives in Chicago -- anyone near there of a
scholarly magical bent might do well to interview older
family members and see if they have some information that
might shed light on these conundrums. 

cat yronwode

Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!HSNX.atgi.net!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!216.218.192.242!news.he.net!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!ec13cbac!not-for-mail
From: heidrick@well.com (Bill Heidrick)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: DeLaurence Publishing (was Re: Heidrick
Reply-To: heidrick@well.com
Message-ID: <4049d21c.5187287@news.west.earthlink.net>
References:  <403f2fda.4570712@news.west.earthlink.net>  <4040a2dc.5846281@news.west.earthlink.net>  <4041e394.4436892@news.west.earthlink.net>  <40447b60.4364884@news.west.earthlink.net>  <40487193.4124625@news.west.earthlink.net>  <4048E596.A6344AE@luckymojo.com>
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235
Lines: 50
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 13:37:56 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.40.192
X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net
X-Trace: newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net 1078580276 209.165.40.192 (Sat, 06 Mar 2004 05:37:56 PST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 05:37:56 PST
Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net
Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick:369560

93 Catherine,

On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 20:30:05 GMT, catherine yronwode
 wrote:

>Satyr wrote:
>> 
>> heidrick@well.com (Bill Heidrick) writes:
>> 
>> > Maybe De Laurence himself, maybe somebody
>> > connected to Plumber scribed it.
>> 
>> Plumber? I'm afraid you lost me there.
>
>Me too. Who is Plumber?

See my reply to Satyr.  Also, see books dealing with Crowley, Golden
Dawn, Hermetic Brotherhood, etc. for accounts of Plummer.  Most recent
source book: _The Unknown God: W.T.Smith and the Thelemites_, Martin
P. Starr, The Teitan Press, Inc, 2003, ISBN 0933429-07-X.

>> One point that suggests an author other than de Laurence -
>> admittedly rather weak - is, why the somewhat conservative 
>> date of 1880? Given the publisher's tendency to exaggeration, 
>> a much older date would seem to have served his purposes better.
>
>I know of no instance of DeLaurence faking a date (unless
>what he was reprinting had come to him with a faked date, of
>which i am uncertain). 

He did tend to copy other people's stuff fairly faithfully, deleting
some material and often the author's name.  :-)
   Sometimes he did pad, with an added introduction and a gaggle of
adds for virgin parchment etc.


>The problem with DeLaurence is that he cannot simply be
>dismissed as a book pirate. In addition to the pirated
>volumes, he apparently did write some of the books for which
>he claimed authorship -- but some, as is obvious from
>textual analysis, were ghost-written for him.
>(Alternatively, *all* of the non-pirated books were
>ghost-written, but by several hands.) 

True, although his own material seems mostly like that, either a
collection of pirated scraps or a jobbed out thing.

93 93/93
Bill Heidrick
heidrick@well.com