ASTROLOGY

Thompson was a well-known Boston astrologer in the early decades of the twentieth century, with a lucrative private practice and columns in the 'Ladies Home Journal' and the 'Boston Globe', the latter syndicated to nearly a hundred other American newspapers. In August 1933 she was unmasked as a fraud by a disgruntled secretary in an article in the 'Ladies Home Journal'. Seven items, in good condition, on paper with light signs of age. ONE: Typescript titled 'A Boston Woman Who Has Made Good | Catherine Howard Thompson'. Dated internally to 1916.

Three items from the papers of John Gordon, editor of the Daily Express. The first two in good condition, lightly aged and creased; the third creased and torn, with slight loss to text. ONE: Typed Letter Signed ('R. H. N.') from Naylor to Gordon. 1p., 12mo. Headed 'Confidential'. He writes: 'Having drawn up an Astrological Chart for the time of the official inauguration of Roosevelt's Third Term I find some queer indications there. To me they are tremendously interesting and as I think you might find them interesting too I am sending you a copy of the notes I have filed.

89pp, 4to; consisting of half-title, title, three-page introduction by Rylands, seventy-three page unpaginated facsimile of the main work on consecutive pages, and eleven pages (each with a blank reverse), each carrying a hand-coloured plate. On watermarked wove paper, with top edge gilt, and other edges deckled. Good, on aged paper (first and last pages dusty), in recent black-cloth quarter binding, with grey boards and white label on spine.

Landscape 12mo. 17 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged and lightly-creased paper. For a graphologist Miss Baughan's handwriting is curiously angular and crabbed. Explaining that 'these together with some 2 dozen others were overlooked in the July packet - at least this was how it was - each week a packet is sent & I do the packets in rotation of their dates'. She is 'really now doing the September studies'. Continues in same vein. Baughan published a number of works on what would now be called 'new age' subjects in the 1880s.

Pamphlet, [23] pages, sm.8vo, grey wraps (prob. not original), one gathering partially detached, pages dulled, some pages opened crudely, no loss of text, mainly good. COPAC records on the BL copy and there is a copy at the Houghton. No other yet traced.

12mo: 8 pp, unpaginated. Stitched. In original green printed wraps. Text and illustrations clear and complete, on browned high-acidity paper with damp staining at head. Wraps foxed and with slight chipping to extremities. The cover features a striking crude woodcut (12 x 9 cm) of David's 'Napoleon crossing the Alps'. The first page features another woodcut (9 x 7 cm) of a martial figure on horseback, with sword drawn.

Wortmann - whose 'Das Gesetz Des Kosmos' (1965) is considered a cosmological masterpiece - corresponded with Hermann Hesse, and was the only modern author to be described by him as a master of the Glass Bead Game. The Sacred Science Institute in America is presently working with Wortmann's family to bring out an edition of his work. The collection is discoloured with age and some leaves are slightly dog-eared, but the whole is in good condition.