The Focus Of Life by Austin Osman Spare

London: Fulgar Press, 2012. One of 700 copies. Hardback. 128 pages. Light shelf-wear, slight crease to jacket, otherwise a near-fine copy. 

The Focus of Life: The Mutterings of Aãos illustrated and written by Austin Osman Spare. 

'The Focus of Life: The Mutterings of Aãos, is arguably the most biographically significant of all Spare’s published works. Often obscure, magical and fragmentary, it invites exploration of a strange Nietzschean landscape through what Spare termed ‘the labyrinth of the alphabet.’ But the recent discovery of Spare’s original conceptual folio for the book, once owned by the writer E.M. Forster, has revealed an unseen series of powerful magico-erotic drawings, termed by Spare ‘blasphemous Ideographs’, that provide an important key to understanding the ‘secret ritual of Self-Love’ that underlies this evocative and deeply personal work.

This new issue of The Focus of Life provides readers with a high quality facsimile of the 1921 first edition, together with a full colour facsimile of the newly discovered conceptual folio for the project. These important works are further augmented with critical essays from Phil Baker and Robert Ansell.'