The Square of Sevens

By Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson

This early work by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson was originally published in 1889 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Janus' is one of Prime-Stevenson 's works of fiction. Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson was born on the 23rd of July 1858 in New Jersey, America. Prime-Stevenson was a prolific pro-homosexuality author, also writing under the pseudonym of Xavier Mayne. Prime-Stevenson died of a heart attack in Lausanne on the 23rd of July 1942.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jan 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473378476

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson (1858-1942) was an American writer. Born in Madison, New Jersey, Prime-Stevenson was raised by Paul E. Stevenson, a Presbyterian minister, and Cornelia Prime, who hailed from a family of prominent academics. After obtaining a law degree, Prime-Stevenson embarked on a career as a novelist, journalist, and impassioned defender of homosexuality. In 1901, he moved to Europe, where he would live for the rest of his life. Imre: A Memorandum (1906), a novel, was published under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne in Naples, Italy. Praised for its realistic and positive depiction of romance between two men, the novel has inspired renewed interest in recent years from scholars and readers interested in the historical representation of homosexuality in literature.

Book preview

THE SQUARE OF SEVENS

AN AUTHORITATIVE SYSTEM OF CARTOMANCY

WITH A PREFATORY NOTICE

BY

E. IRENAEUS STEVENSON

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

TO JOHN DAVIS ADAMS

this new forth-setting of an old mystery is cordially offered.

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson was born on the 23rd of July 1858 in New Jersey, America. Prime-Stevenson was a prolific pro-homosexuality author, also writing under the pseudonym of Xavier Mayne.

In 1896 he published The Square of Sevens, and The Parallelogram: An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note by Robert Antrobus that was supposedly written in 1735. However, it is believed that he was the author.

After studying law, he decided to become a writer and a journalist. In 1901 Prime-Stevenson moved to Europe, living in Florence and Lausanne.

In 1906, under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne, he published the homosexually themed novel Imre: A Memorandum, and in 1908 a sexology study The Intersexes, a defense of homosexuality from a scientific, legal, historical and personal perspective.

Prime-Stevenson died of a heart attack in Lausanne on the 23rd of July 1942.

Editorial Preface

’Tis easy as lying.—Hamlet

It is safe to presume that even the most inquisitive book-hunters of the present day, and few of the fellowship during two or three generations past, have encountered the scarce and curious little volume here presented, as in a friendly literary resurrection—Robert Antrobus’s The Square of Sevens, and the Parallelogram. Its mathematical title hardly hints at the amusement that the book affords. With its solemn faith in the gravity of its mysteries, with its uncertain spellings and capital-icings such as belong to even the Eighteenth Century’s early part, with its quaint phrases and sly observations (all the time sticking strictly close to business), it has a literary character, as well as me occult, that is quite its own.

Fortune-telling with cards and belief in fortune-telling with cards—like a hundred greater and lesser follies of the mind—were straws floating along the current of British life, intellectual and social, during the reign of George the Second. This was the case, in spite of the enlightening influences of religion, science, and philosophy. Modish society was addicted to matters over which argument was hardly worth while—in which respect we find modish society the same in all epochs. Our ancestresses particularly were often charming women,