La Magie dans l'Egypte Antique. De L'Ancien Empire Jusqu'a L'Epoque Copte (Magic in Ancient Egypt. From the Old Kingdom to the Coptic Era) in 2 volumes plus atlas of loose plates

Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1925. First Edition. 2 Volumes in original wrappers plus a third volume (atlas) in a hardcover portfolio with string ties and loose plates inserted (as issued). Small quarto. Text in French. Volume One (Expose): 220 pp. Volume Two (Les Textes Magiques): 236 pp. Volume Three (Atlas): a portfolio consisting of over 160 photographic images and line drawings shown on 71 loose plates (all present). Both text volumes remain largely unopened along top edge. A fine, complete and unread set. A detailed study of ancient Egyptian magic from the time of the Old Kingdom to that of the Copts. The author is considered to be the founder of Egyptology in Czechoslovakia. Lecsa states in the introduction: "A large number of magical texts of the ancient Egyptians have been preserved to this day, but only a few of them have been published until now, and only a part has been studied and translated. It is therefore impossible for me to offer readers the translations of all the magical texts of the ancient Egyptians, but even if it were possible for me to do so, I would not do it. I present in this book about a third of the ancient Egyptian magic texts, which I studied and translated. The other two-thirds are just the variants of the texts published in this book and would hardly bring anything new. Perhaps, in the texts not yet published, I would still find some valuable documents, but surely not much." Here he translates many of the major ancient Egyptian magical texts (into French) including portions of the Pyramid Texts and The Book of the Dead; plus, The Hieratic Papyrus in the Harris Collection; fragments of papyri from the Turin Museum and the Leiden Museum; the Salt Papyrus No. 325; The Table of Metternich; The Book of the Dragon Apop; The British Museum's Papyrus Scroll No. 10.070 and the Leiden Museum's Papyrus Scroll No. J. 383 - two portions of the same demotic manuscript which is a grimoire presenting Hellenic magic formulas in Greek; a Greek grimoire of the National Library in Paris which contains demotic magic formulas; a few Coptic magical papyri housed in German museums; Coptic medical papyri; a number of papyri which contain stories about magicians, and many other papyri fragments pertaining to magic.