How to date early editions of Sepharial’s book “The Silver Key”

Sepharial (Walter Gorn Old) was a versatile writer on astrological, divinatory and broader theosophical topics. Several of his books were included on W. D. Gann’s recommended reading list, making them especially sought after with collectors in the original editions.

Early editions of Sepharial’s books are difficult for the non-specialist to date, owing to the frequent absence of reliable dates in print, or in some cases of any dates at all.

Here is a guide to dating early editions of his book The Silver Key, which was published by Foulsham and ran through at least four distinct printings between 1913 and the 1930s.

All of these printings are bound in cloth with a silver-stamped picture of a key and silver-stamped titling on the front board, but that is where the similarities end.

 

How to Identify the First Edition of 1913

Do not make the mistake of assuming that any copy of The Silver Key that meets the above description is a first edition. Only a small fraction of such copies are. This is something many booksellers, professionals and amateurs included, get wrong, perhaps in their desire to maximise their returns from selling early editions of the book, and perhaps from naiveté and inexperience with Foulsham books, but they are not all alike.

Identifying a true Foulsham first edition of Sepharial’s The Silver Key is really simple with practice, but you need to know where to look. The first edition has the following unique distinguishing features not present on any later Foulsham impression:

1. Publisher’s address in print on the title page must read: 5, Pilgrim Street, London. This was Foulsham’s address only from 1912 to 1917. Therefore the true 1913 first edition, as recorded by the British Library and other library sources, must have this address on the title page. Any Foulsham printing without this address is not from this time window, and any copy of The Silver Key without this address in print on the title page is not the first edition, full stop!

2. Pagination: only the first Foulsham edition has this pagination:
[2 leaves] + [pp. 5-7] + [pp. 9-136] + [8 pages of advertisements]

All later editions by Foulsham were truncated to at most 94 main pages, and not only as a result of revised typesetting – at least one chapter was found only in the first edition, and was then editorially culled altogether from the second edition and all reprints thereof. Thus, you can immediately tell that you are not looking at a first edition when the pagination does not extend beyond p. 93 or p. 94.

3. Font styling in which SEPHARIAL is printed on the front board must be non-italic (as shown below). Only the original printing has the author’s name in silver on the front board without italic styling. The lack of italics here is the final defining clue that you are dealing with a true first edition, and can come in handy as a quick way to distinguish one from a later printing, even if a bookseller has not indicated the publisher address or the page count anywhere in their listing. Conversely, if you see SEPHARIAL in italics on the front board, you know immediately that you are not looking at a first edition! 

Another clue that becomes more apparent when you picture the different impressions side by side is that only the first edition, at least on copies I’ve examined, has deep green-coloured cloth – all the later ones are blue.

 

How to distinguish different impressions of the second edition

Now suppose you are looking at a Foulsham printing of The Silver Key that does not meet these three identifying requirements. So it’s not a first edition. But it’s still valuable, right?

Yes, because even second editions and later printings of The Silver Key bearing the Foulsham imprint are sought after by collectors provided that they have the silver key and title on the front board. It’s all a matter of degree, however. They will never be nearly as valuable as first editions, but they are still going to be a lot more valuable than any reprint from after 1939.

Not all second editions are equal among themselves, however, and this is where things get more complicated, because distinguishing different impressions of the second edition of The Silver Key is more difficult than distinguishing the first edition from all later editions.

All second editions are limited to at most 94 main pages, and they all have SEPHARIAL in italics on the front board, but only one is the original printing of the second edition – this is the one with the following two identifying features:

1. Publisher’s name and address in print on the title page must read ‘W. Foulsham & Co., Ltd., Sixty-One Fleet Street, London, E.C. 4’.

Foulsham was based at 61 Fleet Street only from 1917 to 1921. This was their next address after moving from 5, Pilgrim Street, their address at the time of the first edition.

2. Date must be present in print on the title page and must read: 1919.

Only the first impression of the second edition has the 1919 date in print on the title page.

We have already covered the different font styling on the front board, but just to illustrate, here is the front board of the original second edition, showing that italic font:

If you are dealing with a copy of The Silver Key that has the correct address for a first impression of the second edition but does not have 1919 on the title page, then it is a second impression of the second edition, and the date could be as late as 1921, which is as good an estimate as any. And yes, there are in fact such printings – I have one in my second-hand shop at the time of writing, in fact. Here’s its title page:

In other respects, this impression looks much the same as the 1919 edition – the pagination ends on p. 94, and the front board has the italic font we’ve already seen pictured for the first impression of the second edition – so there is no need to show this again.

We’ve now covered the first three proven distinct printings of The Silver Key. But that is not where the history of the publication of the book by Foulsham in cloth boards with a silver gilt key on the front board ends, because there was also at least one printing at Foulsham’s next address after 61 Fleet Street, and in fact the change of address is not the only distinguishing feature of the later impressions, because the subtitle of the book also changed some time after the 2nd edition, 2nd impression, as indicated below, and the final page of text was removed, besides.

All three impressions described above (i.e. the first edition, and the first two impressions of the second) bear the subtitle on the title page: A Guide to Speculators. This was about to change after 1922.

You know you are looking at the 3rd or a later-still impression of the second edition when it has the following distinctive characteristics:

1. The subtitle on the title page has changed to A Scientific Guide to Speculation – as pictured below. This subtitle was not present on any of the three earlier impressions.

2. No address given for the publisher on the title page: just W. Foulsham & Co., London (as seen above).

But when you look in the advertisements at the back of this impression, you can see that the publisher’s address has changed to 10 & 11 Red Lion Court, which it occupied between 1922 and 1939:

3. The text ends abruptly after p. 93, at variance with both the earlier impressions of the second edition, which featured a conclusion on p. 94 that was advertised on the table of contents; with the third impression, there is no p. 94, and there is no conclusion even advertised in the table of contents:

It stands to reason that the printings with the changed subtitle as well as no street address on the title page but 10 & 11 Red Lion Court in the advertisements at the back are the least valuable of these four states for the Foulsham editions of Sepharial’s book The Silver Key, because they are not the first, the second or the third overall printings, and have marginally the fewest pages of all the impressions. But even they are valuable (though to a lesser degree than the three earlier printings) because the period spanning 1922-1939 is still a long time ago now and they still bear the original design values of the 1919 second edition, including the italicised font to the author’s name on the front board:

So ends my expert guide to identifying and dating early editions of Sepharial’s Gann-list title The Silver Key. There are at least four Foulsham printings, and they are not all alike or equal, so don’t ever allow yourself to be mis-sold a second edition as a first, or a second edition, third impression as an original second edition either.