I Saw Water: An Occult Novel and Selected Writings

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) is remembered today as a surrealist artist, writer and occultist. Although her paintings hang in a number of public collections and her gothic novel Goose of Hermogenes (1961) remains in print, critical responses to her work have been severely constrained thanks to the limited availability of her writings and paintings. The publication for the first time of her second novel I Saw Water, together with a selection of her writings and images, many previously unpublished, marks a significant step in redressing this difficulty.

Composed almost entirely from the author's dreams collaged together to form the story-line, I Saw Water is a novel in which Colquhoun challenges such fundamental distinctions as those between sleeping and waking, the two separated genders and between life and death. It is set in a convent on the Island of the Dead, but draws its spiritual context from sources as varied as Roman Catholicism, teachings of the Theosophical Society, Goddess spirituality, Druidism, the mystical Qabalah and Neo-platonism.

The editors have provided an introduction and extensive explanatory notes. The introductory essay helps place the novel in the context of author's other work and the cultural and spiritual environment in which she lived. Extensive notes will help the reader with any concepts that may be unfamiliar.