[Leo, Alan[1]] ‘A Simple Method of Instruction in the Science of Astrology, Containing the True Nature of the Planets – Part I – Reprinted from Volume I of “Modern Astrology” [2]‘ Alan Leo, 1 & 2, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E. C., London / The Occult Publishing Company, Boston, America, 1896.
Original card covers (1 cm chip lost from top of spine; 4mm from foot of same; slight chipping to outer corners of front cover; two lengths of old browned tape adhered across spine and inner margins of covers to reinforce binding). [4] + 73 + [1 page of advertisements] + [rear cover with advertisements]
[1] The front cover attribution is to ‘The Editor of “Modern Astrology” ‘.
[2] The first part of the first dedicated edition of what became, in its second published the following year, “Practical Astrology”, q.v. above. Whether or not the second part of the first edition was ever published is presently unclear, since there are no copies of either part noted in library records on COPAC or Worldcat.
About this Book Scan
A Simple Method of Instruction in the Science of Astrology by Alan Leo was originally serialised in the pages of Modern Astrology magazine. After a certain number of months, the parts of the series that had been published to date were then also combined, reset and offered for sale as a book in a cheap binding, billed as Part I of the overall work, and published thus in 1896.
This was Alan Leo’s first astrological book in its original form as a separate book. It was ostensibly his original intention to supplement it with a follow-up volume to be called Part II. Although the originally projected Part II seems never to have appeared as a discrete volume in its own right, Leo undertook a major revision and extension process and released an expanded one-volume edition under the revised title of Practical Astrology the following year. A scan of our original printing of Practical Astrology is available separately for download.
We here present the original prototypical edition of 1896 primarily for historical interest purposes, although it had been superseded within a year. Few printings of the 1896 edition now survive, and they are seldom seen for sale second-hand in any condition.