Matins and Vespers is one of the rarest Elder titles, both because of its ephemeral nature and the notoriety of its author. Violet M. Firth (1890-1946) was a prominent British author, psychologist, teacher, artist, occultist, and mystic. However, she is known primarily by her pseudonym Dion Fortune, inspired by her family motto Deo non fortuna (Latin for “by God, not fate”), originally the ancient motto of the Barons and Earls Digby. She was a prolific writer of the supernatural and the occult in both novels and non-fiction works. According to Wikipedia, Fortune “is recognised as one of the most significant occultists and ceremonial magicians of the early 20th century. The Fraternity she founded survived her and in later decades spawned a variety of related groups based upon her teachings. Her novels in particular proved an influence on later occult and modern Pagan groups such as Wicca.”
The text consists of four poems: Morning Hymn, Morning Prayer, Evening Hymn, and Evening Prayer. The cover recto includes a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson, and the verso a quote from Sir Edwin Arnold. Firth’s name only appears in the colophon.
Matins and Vespers, written and published while Fortune was still known as Violet Firth, is a small pamphlet, composed of four sheets folded once and tied with string, making a quire of eight folios. The compositing is by John Henry Nash, and I can think of no greater example of his widely admired skill with the precise perpendicular lines known as mitred rules: in three colors, no less. The actual printing would have been farmed out to a local press shop, despite the colophon reading “printed for them by their Tomoyé Press, at their Shop in the City of San Francisco, which lieth at the Gateway to the Golden West.” Whereas similar unbound Elder titles were almost always issued with matching envelopes (e.g. Charity), Matins and Vespers appears to have been issued with a matching cover consisting of a simple, loose, folded sheet printed on the front.
Violet Mary Firth was born in 1890 to wealthy English family in Llandudno, Wales, where her father ran a hydrotherapy (then called hydropathy) clinic. As a teenager, she lived in the southwest of England, and later studied at the University of London. During World War I, she was a part of the Women’s Land Army, an organization designed to employ women in agriculture in order to replace the men who were fighting in France. For details on Dion Fortune’s extensive career in the occult, I refer the reader to her Wikipedia page. Fortune died of leukemia in 1946 in Middlesex, London, at the age of 55, and is buried at St. John’s Church, Glastonbury.
