This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/19/2024
[HALLUCINOGENS]. WASSON, Robert Gordon (1898-1986). Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., [1968]. Folio. 24 plates (2 hand-colored), several tipped in, numerous in text illustrations, 3 maps, one folding linguistic chart. Original crushed navy blue niger morocco-backed cloth, gilt-lettered spine, top edge gilt, others uncut; original matching slipcase. FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, number 119 of 650 copies on handmade paper, designed by Giovanni Mardersteig and printed at the Stamperia Valdonega in Verona. Considered “one of the greatest ethnobotanical monographs ever written” (Phantastica) which examines 1,028 remaining Vedic hymns and the hallucinogenic mushroom which is identical to the divine plant described in the Rig Veda, the earliest religious text of the Indo-European cultures. “Soma was at the time a god, a plant, and the juice of that plant. So far as we know, Soma was the only plant that man has ever defied…” (from the first chapter). Phantastica 267. A Horowitz high spot.