Aradia:Gospel of the Witches a bibliographical musing

Most of you are, I'm sure, familiar with the basic story of Charles Geoffrey Leland and his compilation entitled "Aradia" (it being a vangelo, "gospel" of the Witches passed along to him by a Florentine informant, Maddelana). In truth, a study of the fair copy manuscript by Mario & Dina Pazzaglini 1998 showed that a potion of the material was culled from previous works on magic by the author (such as Etruscan Magic and Roman Remains). It had sat with his publisher, David Nutt, for several years before finally being published in 1899, then ignored until the mid-20th century.

This first printing is, in the words of the booktrade, scarce (and desirable). Even with the rise of Internet sales, I wasn't able to posses a copy until 2005 (and trust me, I had been searching long and hard). The standard bibliographies and bookseller listings repeat the same tidbits of information; the scarcity, and tales of the book being ignored or suppressed after publication. I've yet to find any concrete information on the size of the print run, but the comparables for this period would be in the 1000 copy range. However...

Quite a few copies are now on the market, at very fancy (though merited) prices. This allows one to easily compare various copies, which has led to an intersting observation; there is more than one first edition (or at least more than one state withinn the printing of this edition).Above are the two cover versions.

It would seem that there might have been two press runs, which would be an odd thing if the book was so unwanted in the marketplace (why throw good money after bad)? It does also lead to the unpleasant (to a collector) question of which first is the first first. Pehaps someone in the bindery just forgot to stamp the front title on this particular copy, in which case this would still be a different issue state.

I suspect, however, that, even though there is only one extant book review from the time of issue, that the book was a bit more popular than is generally credited, and it was necessary for David Nutt to go back to press to satisfy demand.