Obsolete Spells - Poems & Prose from Victor Neuburg & the Vine Press

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 tur