THE FOCUS OF LIFE: The Mutterings of Aãos. With the Original Conceptual Folio Now for the First Time Published. The Definitive Edition. by Spare, Austin Osman

UK: Fulgur Limited, 2012. Limited to 600 copies only, hand-numbered. A FINE COPY, uncirculated, in custom cloth with flourishes, illustrated end papers, and a fine dust jacket. This work is the most biographically significant of all Spare's published works. Often obscure, magical and fragmentary, it invites exploration through what Spare termed 'the labyrinth of the alphabet'. The recent discovery of Austin Spare's original "Conceptual Folio", or Prospectus, once owned by the respected writer, E.M. Forster, reveals an unseen series of extreme magico-erotic drawings, termed by Spare as 'blasphemous Ideographs', which provide an important key to understanding his 'secret ritual of Self-Love'. For the first time, readers are provided with an excellent issue of the 1921 first edition, together with, a full color facsimile of the "Conceptual Folio", which embodies such explicit drawings that publication was rejected by the Morland Press in 1921. With critical essays from Phil Baker and Robert Ansell, who designed, compiled & edited this exceptional work. 128 pages. Tall quarto.