A.E.[George Russell] The Hero in Man. The Orpheus Series. No. I. Prelude by Clifford Bax.

Published by D.N. Dunlop, Warwick Drive, Hale, Cheshire, and Clifford Bax, Ivy Bank, Hampstead, London, [1910]. First edition. Small quarto. pp. 30, [2]. Pale blue cloth, lettered in dark blue. Inscribed on front free endpaper. Stamp of Cambridge University library duplicate. A very good copy. Rare hardback copy.
An uncommon early appearance of one of George Russell’s most characteristic mystical essays, issued as the inaugural volume in the short-lived Orpheus Series, an ambitious publishing venture associated with the cultural and spiritual revival movements of the early twentieth century. A.E. (1867-1935), poet, painter, editor, theosophist, and leading figure of the Irish Literary Revival, sought throughout his writings to reconcile individual spiritual development with social and national regeneration.
In The Hero in Man, Russell examines the concept of heroism not as military prowess or worldly achievement, but as the manifestation of higher spiritual faculties latent within every individual. Drawing upon Platonic philosophy, Eastern thought, and his own mystical experiences, he argues that true civilisation depends upon the cultivation of the heroic and imaginative spirit.
The volume is further distinguished by a prelude from the writer and dramatist Clifford Bax (1886-1962), a close associate of many leading literary and occult figures of the period. Hardcover copies appear considerably less frequently than the more familiar paper issue and are seldom encountered in commerce.

[CAT 164]