Projected to span five volumes in chronological order, the letters are selected, annotated and introduced by Michael Staley. This first volume runs up to the late 1940s, focusing on Kenneth Grant’s stay at Netherwood in 1945.
It was in 1939 that Grant first encountered Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice on a bookstall outside Zwemmer’s, the surrealist bookshop in Charing Cross Road, London. Fascinated by it, he read everything else he could find by Crowley, whilst making several attempts to contact him. He was finally successful in November 1944, Crowley by now living at the Bell Inn in Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire. Interested by Grant’s letters, Crowley invited him to visit, which he did on 12th December, and again shortly thereafter on 4th January. Writing on the 16th January to the O.T.O. Grand Treasurer, Karl Germer, Crowley described his worsening health, and then talked in glowing terms of Grant:
There is a young man named George Kenneth Grant, not quite 21 years old. His intelligence is of the first order; he knows a great deal of literature in general, and has studied my work for three years, so that I may say he is already as advanced at his age as I was at 25.
After describing Grant’s current living arrangements, Crowley continued:
He is very anxious to give up his present work and come to me permanently . . . He can be useful to me in all sorts of ways, because of his experience of my work and enthusiasm for it, and because he can look after me in quite a number of ways . . . I am writing this letter entirely to find out from you to what extent you can foot the bill.
Following his subsequent relocation to Netherwood in Hastings, Crowley developed plans for Grant to stay with him, working as his Secretary in exchange for magical tuition; and in March 1945 he went to live at Netherwood. Housed in a cottage in the grounds, Grant wrote to Steffi almost every day – describing events at Netherwood, responding to the letters that Steffi was writing to him, and serialising passages from the Commentaries on The Book of the Law which Crowley had with him in typescript form. Grant left Netherwood in May 1945, and continued corresponding with Crowley until April 1946.
As well as letters by Grant, also included by arrangement with the O.T.O. are the letters to him by Crowley. Illustrated with relevant diary entries and a section of plates, the book will published in standard and limited editions.