Facsimile or first edition? How a 1975 reprint passes for a signed 1909 Waite

A copy of Arthur Edward Waite’s The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal came across our desk recently, offered online as a “rare signed 1909” first edition. The title page read London, Rebman Limited, 1909. The half-title carried a warm inscription in Waite’s name. It looked right, and it was wrong. Here is how we worked it out, step by step, because the same checks apply to almost any “signed first edition” you see for sale.

What the real first edition looks like

The first edition was published by Rebman Limited in London in 1909: a thick octavo of about 714 pages in red cloth with gilt lettering. Copies that turn up for sale today are consistently described the same way: browned paper and untrimmed, rough page edges. Unsigned copies currently ask roughly $575 to $960.

Five things that gave this copy away

1. The binding was 1970s, not 1909. Red imitation leather with a blind-stamped border frame and a gilt blackletter title set in a panel. That is a uniform publisher’s binding, not a rebind and not Rebman’s cloth.
2. The paper was bright white with smooth, machine-cut edges. A book printed in 1909 on that era’s paper tones with age; a rebound copy would still show it.
3. The type looked slightly thick and soft. That is what happens when pages are reproduced photographically, a generation removed from the original metal type.
4. The listing never showed the back of the title page. That page is where a reprint names itself.
5. The inscription is printed in other copies too. This was the clincher. We found a second, ordinary copy of the 1975 Yogi Publication Society reprint (Des Plaines, Illinois; ISBN 0-911662-54-5) with the exact same inscription on the exact same page, word for word and line for line. The verso of its title page reads “Reprinted by Yogi Publication Society.”

Why the inscription looks so convincing

The reprint was made by photographing an existing copy, and that copy happened to be inscribed. The inscription reads as a gift from Dora Stuart-Menteath, with God speed “from the Author.” Dora Stuart-Menteath was real: Waite’s sister-in-law, a fellow member of the Golden Dawn, and, according to Waite’s biographer R. A. Gilbert, the great love of his life. Her name is even on the title page of Avalon (1894), a Grail poem Gilbert believes Waite largely wrote himself. So the inscription is almost certainly a faithful photograph of a genuine presentation copy. That original would be a remarkable book. The 1975 reprint simply carries its picture.

A real-sounding inscription is not proof. Facsimiles reproduce real inscriptions perfectly.

Waite died in 1942. Nothing in a 1975 printing can carry his ink.

A checklist you can use on any “signed first”

• Turn to the back of the title page. A reprint notice, a later publisher or an ISBN (used from about 1970 on) settles most cases in one photo.
• Compare the physical book with dealer descriptions of true firsts: binding material, page count, paper tone, edge trimming.
• Search for other copies of the suspected reprint. If the same “signature” appears in them, it is printed.
• Check dates. A signature cannot be newer than the person who signed it.
• Look at the ink. In raking light, real pen ink sits in a slight dent and varies in weight. Print is flat and even.
• Price the exact edition. Yogi reprints of this title sell for a small fraction of a true first, even though some listings ask first-edition money.

Unsure about a book you own or are thinking of buying? Send us photos of the cover, the title page, the back of the title page and any signature. That is usually enough for us to tell you what you have.