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The New Word. An Open Letter addressed to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on the meaning of the word IDEALIST.
The New Word. An Open Letter addressed to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on the meaning of the word IDEALIST.
The New Word. An Open Letter addressed to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on the meaning of the word IDEALIST.

The New Word. An Open Letter addressed to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on the meaning of the word IDEALIST.

Scientology, Ezra Pound, the Nobel Prize


The New Word (1910) published for the first time the word Scientology —“apparently first coined in this book by Allen Upward (1863-1926), five decades before L. Ron Hubbard founded his belief system. It appears four times as a noun and once as an adjective (on p. 119, p. 139, p. 149 and p. 156).” (The New Word Index)

Upward was a lawyer, a volunteer during the Greco-Turkish War (1897), and wrote fiction, non-fiction, and verse. His imagist verse appeared in Poetry and he was praised by Ezra Pound “for championing the ‘cause of the sensitive’—the prophet or artist who is ahead of his or her time.” (Kemp, Mitchell, Trotter)

“The New Word (1907) was an open letter to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on the meaning of the word ‘idealist’ [for Upward] hoped to be awarded the Nobel prize for Literature, and Pound thought that his suicide might have been from disappointment” when Upward’s expectations were not realized. (ibid)

Upward is best known for his crime and espionage novels, occult and fantasy tales, and other popular fiction. His most successful work was The Secret History of Today: Being Revelations of a Diplomatic Spy (1904).


Description: The New Word. An Open Letter addressed to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on the meaning of the word IDEALIST.

New York: Mitchell Kennerley, [1910]. First American edition, first printing. 8vo. Publisher’s maroon cloth and gilt lettering and without the rare dustwrapper. Early name to endpaper; a handsome copy.

[3732201]

Price: $450.00

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