Ross G Caldwell
2000+ pages was the last I heard. That sounds very juicey to me. But that page count makes you realise what a hatchet job Symonds and Grant did!
I'll wait to judge - the new format may be quite different. The Symonds and Grant edition is 42 lines per page, 10 to 15 words (75 characters) per line, so between 400 and 600 words per page - that's a pretty dense page.
I don't doubt that some interesting rambles have been abridged, but I doubt that more than half of what he wrote was.
Ross, this is a little off topic, but has the OTO's Crowley copyright expired? I've started seeing lots of non-OTO sanctioned editions of Magic in Theory and Practice and The Book of the Law just lately that leads me to believe it has.
I don't know, to be honest. I don't think the US OTO's (Caliphate) copyright claims are de facto applicable in other countries. I don't know if those claims have been tested in a foreign court.
Breeze writes some things about copyright that seem a little odd to me. For instance, in the introduction to The Drug and Other Stories (Wordsworth, 2010), he says: "Wordsworth excels at affordable editions of public domain literature, but, whilst Crowley's works published before 1923 are public domain in America, in Europe the works authorised in his lifetime are in copyright through 2017, and his posthumous works through 2039." (p. xiv)
Those are bold statements. First, who in "Europe" claims Crowley's copyright?
Second, 2039 is 92 years after Crowley's death - I have never heard of such a copyright provision. "Posthumous" works? They may trickle out forever - how is there a pre-ordained limit on their copyrights?
It's murky, and the only way to settle it is to test it in court - something most potential publishers are unwilling to do.