A very scarce book from George Robert Stow Mead (1863 - 1933), the noted English historian, writer, editor and translator - this is his translation of the Askew Codex, a 3rd Century Gnostic text, that was purchased by The British Museum in 1795 from a Dr Askew.
Mead was an influential member for 25 years of the Theosophical Society, he served for some time as the private secretary of Russian mystic H P Blavatsky, and founded the Quest Society in 1909. His various works influenced the likes of WB Yeats, Ezra Pound, Hermann Hesse and Carl Gustav Jung.
' Pistis Sophia ; A Gnostic Miscellany : Being for the Most Part Extracts From the Books of the Saviour, to Which Are Added Excerpts From a Cognate Literature ' published by John M Watkins in London in 1921, a New and Completely Revised Edition (from that originally released in 1896), 8vo clothbound (8.75in x 5.5in, (lxx) + 325 pages.
Original olive-green cloth, titled in gilt to the spine. In near very good condition, tightly bound, light general edge and surface wear, light bumps to 3 corners and pushed spine ends, the book has a degree of lean.
Internally in very good+ condition, no ownership inscriptions, solid hinges, the pages are clean and tidy save for a handful of light marks to the prelims, tanned endpapers, some foxing spots to fore-edge of text block, dusty top edge of text block.
** A very scarce book. There are currently no other copies of this edition, or the earlier 1896 version, listed worldwide on either Ebay or ABEBooks. You will find a multitude of modern reprint versions on both. A copy of this edition, in this cloth, is listed on Amazon.com with a US bookseller at over $700.
As further evidence of the scarcity and desirability of this work by GRS Mead, a copy of this edition, which was missing its title page, half-title page and front endpaper, in a slight variant faded olive-green cloth binding, with an ownership inscription and foxing on the contents pages, was sold on Ebay on 11 January 2023 at or around the listing price of £500 per this link
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354397138357?hash=item5283b72db5:g:OFQAAOSwUwljdUPZ **
This useful website of The Gnostic Society Library may be helpful to the winning bidder or anyone considering making a bid on this book http://gnosis.org/library/psoph.htm
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