2024 2nd Edition
ARS GOETIA
By Anonymous / Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: Paul Summers Young
KEY DETAILS
Condition: Fine
Format: Hardcover, Octavo (Standard) (8vo 6 × 9 in 152 × 229 mm )
Published By: Black Letter Press, Obernkirchen, Germany, 2024
Language: English
Signed By: Signed by Author(s)
Provenance: One of five copies of the 2024 second edition of Ars Goetia signed by Paul Summers Young for Books That Expand The Mind.
Collation: pp. 359
DESCRIPTION
Full Title: The Lesser Key of Solomon: Ars Goetia — The Book of Evil Spirits
Anonymous — from the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, or Lesser Key of Solomon
Edited & Introduced by Paul Summers Young
A particularly attractive signed example of Black Letter Press’s 2024 second edition of Ars Goetia, the first and most celebrated division of the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon — one of the most influential bodies of Solomonic and ceremonial magical literature.
This edition approaches the Goetia not as a single immutable text but as an evolving Early Modern manuscript tradition, bringing together variant textual witnesses, associated source material and later interpretations in order to trace the development of its spirits, seals, conjurations and ritual apparatus.
The 2024 second edition refines the transcription of the earlier Black Letter Press edition while expanding its critical apparatus and contextual treatment. Black Letter Press explicitly describes its objective as recovering the textual plurality frequently obscured by later standardised editions.
The present copy is one of five copies of the 2024 second edition signed by Paul Summers Young for Books That Expand The Mind.
Young has signed the Ars Goetia half-title prominently in full and dated the copy:
“August 2024”
A striking modern production, bound in vivid red buckram with elaborate black and gilt decoration to the upper board and spine, black endpapers, sewn construction and cream age-resistant paper.
PROVENANCE
One of five copies of the 2024 second edition of Ars Goetia signed by Paul Summers Young for Books That Expand The Mind.
The signed copies were obtained directly from Young through BTETM’s longstanding association with him.
The present copy bears a large full signature on the Ars Goetia half-title, together with the manuscript date:
“August 2024”
The signature was not part of a formally published signed issue of the Black Letter Press edition. The five-copy statement therefore relates specifically to those copies signed for Books That Expand The Mind and does not imply that only five signed examples exist worldwide.
Textual History & Bibliographic Background
The Ars Goetia forms the first section of the manuscript collection conventionally known as the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, or Lesser Key of Solomon.
The Lemegeton does not survive as a single authoritative authorial text. Instead, it is represented by a family of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts whose contents, ordering and terminology vary between individual witnesses.
Important surviving manuscripts include British Library Sloane MS 3825, together with Sloane MSS 2731 and 3648 and Harley MS 6483. Sloane 3825 bears the title Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: Rex: The Little Key of Salomon the King and has been particularly important to modern editors attempting to reconstruct the textual development of the work.
The Goetia's catalogue of spirits is closely related to Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, itself appended to editions of De Praestigiis Daemonum. Reginald Scot subsequently translated and adapted much of Weyer’s catalogue in his Discoverie of Witchcraft of 1584, material which became important in the subsequent development of the Lemegeton tradition.
Rather than remaining fixed, this material was repeatedly copied, reorganised and expanded by Early Modern scribes and practitioners. Names and spellings vary; the ordering and descriptions of spirits change; seals and ritual instructions acquire different forms.
The modern understanding of the Goetia was heavily influenced by the edition prepared from material associated with S. L. MacGregor Mathers and published by Aleister Crowley in 1904 as The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King.
That enormously influential publication nevertheless represents only one comparatively late stage in a much older and more fluid textual tradition.
Black Letter Press’s editorial approach deliberately looks behind this later standardisation. The publisher describes the second edition as assembling multiple early sources and placing variants and related texts alongside one another in order to reveal how the hierarchy, seals and functions of the spirits developed over time.
SYNOPSIS
The Ars Goetia is the first and best-known division of the Lesser Key of Solomon.
At its centre is the celebrated catalogue of seventy-two spirits said to have been known, commanded or constrained by the biblical King Solomon.
Each spirit is identified by name and rank and supplied with a description of its appearance, powers or offices and an individual seal or character. Kings, dukes, princes, marquises, presidents, earls and knights form an elaborate supernatural hierarchy associated with abilities ranging from knowledge and prophecy to languages, hidden treasure, reconciliation, reputation and other forms of influence.
This Black Letter Press edition, however, extends substantially beyond a simple presentation of the familiar seventy-two-spirit catalogue.
Its preliminary “Little Acorns” section traces important strands in the tradition through texts including:
Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), James VI’s Daemonologie (1597), and Agrippa’s Vanity of the Arts and Sciences.
The Preface then compares traditions associated with Johann Weyer, Reginald Scot, Peter Smart / Dr Rudd, Frederick Hockley, S. L. MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley.
Following the principal catalogue of spirits, the volume turns to associated ritual material including the Brazen Vessel, the Secret Seal of Solomon, conjurations and magical circles.
The section on magical circles is particularly wide-ranging, juxtaposing material derived from Reginald Scot, Ebenezer Sibly, the seventeenth-century Faire in Spittle Fields and Daniel Defoe’s A System of Magick.
The result is less a modern reconstruction of a supposed lost “original” Goetia than a study of a developing magical tradition — showing how texts, diagrams, seals and ritual concepts were transmitted, modified and reinterpreted over several centuries.
This historical approach distinguishes the Black Letter Press edition from editions principally derived from the later Mathers–Crowley recension.
An important modern edition for collectors and readers interested in Solomonic magic, ceremonial magic, demonology, grimoires, magical manuscripts, Reginald Scot, Johann Weyer, Aleister Crowley and the history of Western esotericism.
AUTHOR BIO
Editor Bio
Paul Summers Young is a translator, editor and writer specialising in historical magical, philosophical and esoteric texts.
His work with Black Letter Press includes the four-volume edition of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia, Giambattista della Porta’s Natural Magick, Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, The Black Pullet, The Red Dragon, Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, Ars Theurgia and other texts central to the Western magical tradition.
For the present Ars Goetia, Paul Summers Young has assembled and contextualised material from different phases of the textual tradition rather than attempting to produce an artificial “definitive” recension. The current Black Letter Press description notes that the second edition further refines the transcription and expands its critical apparatus.
CONDITION, COLLATION & COPY NOTES
Format: Hardcover, approx. 110 × 170 mm
Binding: Red buckram; elaborate black and gilt decoration to upper board and spine; plain red lower board; black endpapers; sewn book block
Printed & Bound By: Grafiche Veneziane, Venice, Italy
Layout & Design: Alice Rocchetti
Paper: 115 gsm wood-free, age-resistant Arena Ivory Rough paper, ISO 9706
An exceptionally clean copy presenting as new.
The vivid red buckram binding remains fresh and bright, with the extensive black and gilt decoration to the upper board and spine crisp and well preserved. Gilt remains bright and the corners and extremities are sharp.
The lower board is intentionally plain red buckram.
Black endpapers remain fresh and unmarked. Internally clean and bright throughout, printed on high-quality wood-free, age-resistant Arena Ivory Rough paper.
The Ars Goetia half-title is signed in full by Paul Summers Young and dated “August 2024.”
A particularly attractive signed example of this substantial modern edition.
Collation:
pp. 359
Please see Photos as part of condition report.
References:
British Library, Sloane MS 3825 — Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: Rex: The Little Key of Salomon the King.
British Library, Sloane MSS 2731 & 3648 — manuscript witnesses to the Lemegeton tradition.
British Library, Harley MS 6483 — Liber Malorum Spirituum, an important related manuscript witness.
Weyer, Johann. Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, appended to De Praestigiis Daemonum, sixteenth century.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. London, 1584.
Mathers, S. L. MacGregor / Crowley, Aleister. The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King. Boleskine: Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1904.
Peterson, Joseph H. (ed.) The Lesser Key of Solomon: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis. Weiser Books, 2001. ISBN 1-57863-220-X. Peterson’s edition is based principally upon British Library manuscripts including Harley 6483 and Sloane MSS 2731, 3648 and 3825.
Black Letter Press. Ars Goetia. Second Edition, 2024.
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
SKU: BTETM0002464
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request
2024 2nd Edition
ARS GOETIA
By Anonymous / Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: Paul Summers Young
KEY DETAILS
Condition: Fine
Format: Hardcover, Octavo (Standard) (8vo 6 × 9 in 152 × 229 mm )
Published By: Black Letter Press, Obernkirchen, Germany, 2024
Language: English
Signed By: Signed by Author(s)
Provenance: One of five copies of the 2024 second edition of Ars Goetia signed by Paul Summers Young for Books That Expand The Mind.
Collation: pp. 359
DESCRIPTION
Full Title: The Lesser Key of Solomon: Ars Goetia — The Book of Evil Spirits
Anonymous — from the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, or Lesser Key of Solomon
Edited & Introduced by Paul Summers Young
A particularly attractive signed example of Black Letter Press’s 2024 second edition of Ars Goetia, the first and most celebrated division of the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon — one of the most influential bodies of Solomonic and ceremonial magical literature.
This edition approaches the Goetia not as a single immutable text but as an evolving Early Modern manuscript tradition, bringing together variant textual witnesses, associated source material and later interpretations in order to trace the development of its spirits, seals, conjurations and ritual apparatus.
The 2024 second edition refines the transcription of the earlier Black Letter Press edition while expanding its critical apparatus and contextual treatment. Black Letter Press explicitly describes its objective as recovering the textual plurality frequently obscured by later standardised editions.
The present copy is one of five copies of the 2024 second edition signed by Paul Summers Young for Books That Expand The Mind.
Young has signed the Ars Goetia half-title prominently in full and dated the copy:
“August 2024”
A striking modern production, bound in vivid red buckram with elaborate black and gilt decoration to the upper board and spine, black endpapers, sewn construction and cream age-resistant paper.
PROVENANCE
One of five copies of the 2024 second edition of Ars Goetia signed by Paul Summers Young for Books That Expand The Mind.
The signed copies were obtained directly from Young through BTETM’s longstanding association with him.
The present copy bears a large full signature on the Ars Goetia half-title, together with the manuscript date:
“August 2024”
The signature was not part of a formally published signed issue of the Black Letter Press edition. The five-copy statement therefore relates specifically to those copies signed for Books That Expand The Mind and does not imply that only five signed examples exist worldwide.
Textual History & Bibliographic Background
The Ars Goetia forms the first section of the manuscript collection conventionally known as the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, or Lesser Key of Solomon.
The Lemegeton does not survive as a single authoritative authorial text. Instead, it is represented by a family of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts whose contents, ordering and terminology vary between individual witnesses.
Important surviving manuscripts include British Library Sloane MS 3825, together with Sloane MSS 2731 and 3648 and Harley MS 6483. Sloane 3825 bears the title Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: Rex: The Little Key of Salomon the King and has been particularly important to modern editors attempting to reconstruct the textual development of the work.
The Goetia's catalogue of spirits is closely related to Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, itself appended to editions of De Praestigiis Daemonum. Reginald Scot subsequently translated and adapted much of Weyer’s catalogue in his Discoverie of Witchcraft of 1584, material which became important in the subsequent development of the Lemegeton tradition.
Rather than remaining fixed, this material was repeatedly copied, reorganised and expanded by Early Modern scribes and practitioners. Names and spellings vary; the ordering and descriptions of spirits change; seals and ritual instructions acquire different forms.
The modern understanding of the Goetia was heavily influenced by the edition prepared from material associated with S. L. MacGregor Mathers and published by Aleister Crowley in 1904 as The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King.
That enormously influential publication nevertheless represents only one comparatively late stage in a much older and more fluid textual tradition.
Black Letter Press’s editorial approach deliberately looks behind this later standardisation. The publisher describes the second edition as assembling multiple early sources and placing variants and related texts alongside one another in order to reveal how the hierarchy, seals and functions of the spirits developed over time.
SYNOPSIS
The Ars Goetia is the first and best-known division of the Lesser Key of Solomon.
At its centre is the celebrated catalogue of seventy-two spirits said to have been known, commanded or constrained by the biblical King Solomon.
Each spirit is identified by name and rank and supplied with a description of its appearance, powers or offices and an individual seal or character. Kings, dukes, princes, marquises, presidents, earls and knights form an elaborate supernatural hierarchy associated with abilities ranging from knowledge and prophecy to languages, hidden treasure, reconciliation, reputation and other forms of influence.
This Black Letter Press edition, however, extends substantially beyond a simple presentation of the familiar seventy-two-spirit catalogue.
Its preliminary “Little Acorns” section traces important strands in the tradition through texts including:
Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), James VI’s Daemonologie (1597), and Agrippa’s Vanity of the Arts and Sciences.
The Preface then compares traditions associated with Johann Weyer, Reginald Scot, Peter Smart / Dr Rudd, Frederick Hockley, S. L. MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley.
Following the principal catalogue of spirits, the volume turns to associated ritual material including the Brazen Vessel, the Secret Seal of Solomon, conjurations and magical circles.
The section on magical circles is particularly wide-ranging, juxtaposing material derived from Reginald Scot, Ebenezer Sibly, the seventeenth-century Faire in Spittle Fields and Daniel Defoe’s A System of Magick.
The result is less a modern reconstruction of a supposed lost “original” Goetia than a study of a developing magical tradition — showing how texts, diagrams, seals and ritual concepts were transmitted, modified and reinterpreted over several centuries.
This historical approach distinguishes the Black Letter Press edition from editions principally derived from the later Mathers–Crowley recension.
An important modern edition for collectors and readers interested in Solomonic magic, ceremonial magic, demonology, grimoires, magical manuscripts, Reginald Scot, Johann Weyer, Aleister Crowley and the history of Western esotericism.
AUTHOR BIO
Editor Bio
Paul Summers Young is a translator, editor and writer specialising in historical magical, philosophical and esoteric texts.
His work with Black Letter Press includes the four-volume edition of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia, Giambattista della Porta’s Natural Magick, Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, The Black Pullet, The Red Dragon, Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, Ars Theurgia and other texts central to the Western magical tradition.
For the present Ars Goetia, Paul Summers Young has assembled and contextualised material from different phases of the textual tradition rather than attempting to produce an artificial “definitive” recension. The current Black Letter Press description notes that the second edition further refines the transcription and expands its critical apparatus.
CONDITION, COLLATION & COPY NOTES
Format: Hardcover, approx. 110 × 170 mm
Binding: Red buckram; elaborate black and gilt decoration to upper board and spine; plain red lower board; black endpapers; sewn book block
Printed & Bound By: Grafiche Veneziane, Venice, Italy
Layout & Design: Alice Rocchetti
Paper: 115 gsm wood-free, age-resistant Arena Ivory Rough paper, ISO 9706
An exceptionally clean copy presenting as new.
The vivid red buckram binding remains fresh and bright, with the extensive black and gilt decoration to the upper board and spine crisp and well preserved. Gilt remains bright and the corners and extremities are sharp.
The lower board is intentionally plain red buckram.
Black endpapers remain fresh and unmarked. Internally clean and bright throughout, printed on high-quality wood-free, age-resistant Arena Ivory Rough paper.
The Ars Goetia half-title is signed in full by Paul Summers Young and dated “August 2024.”
A particularly attractive signed example of this substantial modern edition.
Collation:
pp. 359
Please see Photos as part of condition report.
References:
British Library, Sloane MS 3825 — Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: Rex: The Little Key of Salomon the King.
British Library, Sloane MSS 2731 & 3648 — manuscript witnesses to the Lemegeton tradition.
British Library, Harley MS 6483 — Liber Malorum Spirituum, an important related manuscript witness.
Weyer, Johann. Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, appended to De Praestigiis Daemonum, sixteenth century.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. London, 1584.
Mathers, S. L. MacGregor / Crowley, Aleister. The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King. Boleskine: Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1904.
Peterson, Joseph H. (ed.) The Lesser Key of Solomon: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis. Weiser Books, 2001. ISBN 1-57863-220-X. Peterson’s edition is based principally upon British Library manuscripts including Harley 6483 and Sloane MSS 2731, 3648 and 3825.
Black Letter Press. Ars Goetia. Second Edition, 2024.
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
SKU: BTETM0002464
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request
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