Select Secrets: Rare & Important Magicana

Hilliard, John Northern. Greater Magic. [Expurgated Edition]. Minneapolis: Carl Waring Jones, 1938. One of fifty numbered copies in the publisher’s expurgated edition. Red cloth stamped in gilt with pictorial dust jacket in three colors (minor rubbing and chips). Illustrated. Thick 8vo. Very good. Scarce. Sold with two variants of the prospectus for the standard edition of the book. After almost a decade of planning and preparation, and the death of the author in the midst of the process, Greater Magic was released with much fanfare in December of 1938. It was dubbed an instant classic, and remains one of the best books in the field. Publisher Carl Waring Jones issued fifty copies of this “expurgated” edition, gifting them to friends and colleagues a sort of joke. While the front matter and first chapter are present in these copies, everything after page 26, excepting the last two leaves, are blank. This in a 1000+ page tome that was so highly anticipated as to sell out its initial print run only a few months after its. release. Undoubtedly those who received these “gift” copies from Jones were equally amused and frustrated upon receipt of their books.