Gurdjieff International Review
P. D. Ouspensky
A Brief Bibliography
by J. Walter Driscoll
Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought, a Key to the Enigmas of the World. Translated from the Russian by Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon. Rochester, N.Y.: Manas Press, 1920, 344p.; New York: Knopf, 1922; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1923, 1934; 3rd American edition, New York: Knopf, 1945, 306p. A revised English translation by Eugenic Kadloubovsky under Ouspensky’s supervision, limited edition of 21 copies, Cape Town: Stourton Press, 1950, 192p. An Abridgement of P. D. Ouspensky’s ‘Tertium Organum,’ by Fairfax Hall, Cape Town: Stourton Press, 1961, 276p.; revised translation by E. Kadloubovsky and the author, New York: Knopf, 1981, 298p., index.
Ouspensky’s experimental efforts to enter higher states of consciousness proved to him that an entirely new mode of thought was needed by modern man, qualitatively different from the two modes (classical and positivistic) that have dominated Western civilization for 2000 years. Tertium Organum is a clarion call for such thought, ranging brilliantly over the teachings of Eastern and Western mysticism, sacred art and the theories of modern science. With the publication of Tertium Organum in Russian, in 1911, Ouspensky became a widely respected author and lecturer on metaphysical questions. The American translation of Tertium Organum in 1920, won him widespread recognition in England and America, where he lived from 1921.
A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method in Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion and Art. Translated from the Russian by R. R. Merton, under the supervision of the author. New York: Knopf, 1931; London: Routledge, 1931, 544p.; 2nd revised edition, London: Routledge, 1934; New York: Knopf; 1934; reprinted 1943, 1961, (Knopf) and 1971 (Random House), 476p.; London: Routledge, 1949, 534p.
A collection of twelve wide-ranging and penetrating essays dealing with esotericism, symbolism, science, religion, higher dimensions, evolution, superman, eternal recurrence and other topics that anticipate many of the most significant psycho-spiritual questions of the twentieth-century. Most of these extended essays were published separately in Russian before Ouspensky translated them to English and published this anthology in London in 1931 for the general purpose of attracting those interested in such questions.
Psychological Lectures: 1934–1940. Privately printed and distributed. London [1940], 90p., limited edition of 125 copies. Six introductory lectures, issued by Ouspensky’s Historico-Psychological Society at 46 Colet Gardens in London. Posthumously published in five lectures as The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. New York: Hedgehog Press, 1950, 98p.; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1951, 95p., index; New York: Knopf, 1954, 114p.; 2nd edition enlarged [with a preface by John Pentland], New York: Knopf, 1974, 128p. (This edition contains a reprint of the article “Notes on the Decision to Work” and a previously unpublished autobiographical note.) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, 95p.(Contains Ouspensky’s 1945 introduction.) 3rd edition, New York: Random House, 1981, 128p. (This edition contains a publisher’s note in place of the introductory note written for the 2nd edition. The two selections added to the 2nd edition are replaced by a lecture of Sept. 23, 1937.)
These private introductory lectures were written, not for publication, but to provide Ouspensky’s students with an account of the direction his work had taken since the publication of Tertium Organum and A New Model of the Universe. Ouspensky indicates in his 1945 introduction to these lectures, that they are an invitation to “follow the advice and indications given…which referred chiefly to self-observation and a certain self-discipline.” Not simply a synopsis of the knowledge Ouspensky had learned from Gurdjieff, these deeply considered lectures present the author’s struggle to transmit a living system in the hope of attracting the supportive attention of the same higher sources from whom Ouspensky believed Gurdjieff had received his teaching.
Strange Life of Ivan Osokin. Limited edition of 356 copies. London: Stourton, 1947, 179p.; New York and London: Holme, 1947, 166p.; London: Faber & Faber, 1948; New York, Hermitage House, 1955, 166p.; London: Faber & Faber, 1971, 204p.; Baltimore: Penguin, 1971 (“The Penguin Metaphysical Library” reprinted with a foreword by J[ohn] P[entland]), 1973, 204p.; New York: Arkana/Methuen, 1988, 162p.
Written in Russian in 1905 as a “cinema-drama,” and first published as Kinemadrama (St. Petersburg, 1915), Ouspensky’s novel is base on the theme of “eternal recurrence.” It tells the story of how the young Ivan Osokin is unable to correct his past mistakes, even when given the chance to relive his life. The last chapter powerfully portrays a man’s shock at the realization of his utter mechanicality and characterizes both the promise and the demand of an esoteric school.
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949, 399p.; London: Routledge, 1949, 399p. Paperback edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, no date [196?].
Ouspensky met Gurdjieff in Moscow in 1915. Undertaken in 1925, with Gurdjieff’s approval and in progress for many years, parts of the manuscript were read to Ouspensky’s groups in the 1930’s but it remained unpublished at his death in 1947. It was brought to Gurdjieff’s attention by Mme Ouspensky and with his encouragement, published in the Fall of 1949 as a precursor to Beelzebub’s Tales. This book is the precise, clear result of Ouspensky’s long work in recording in an honest and impersonal form these “Fragments of an Unknown Teaching” which he received from Gurdjieff. Remains unparalleled as a lucid and systematic account of Gurdjieff’s early formulation of his ideas.
P. D. Ouspensky Memorial Collection. Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., Manuscript Group No. 840.
Fifty-four boxes of material that include typed transcripts of Ouspensky’s meetings from 1921 to 1947, some of which were subsequently published as The Fourth Way (1957), Conscience (1979) A Further Record (1986) [These posthumous publications are cited below.] The Yale collection also contains manuscripts, translations and copies of his books, and two boxes of photographs and material about Ouspensky.
P. D. Ouspensky Memorial Collection: Manuscript Group 840. [An inventory] by Janet Elaine Gertz. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 1981, 9p.
The Fourth Way: A Record of Talks and Answers to Questions Based on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff. Prepared under the general supervision of Sophia Ouspensky. New York: Knopf, 1957, 446p.; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957, 446p., index; New York: Knopf, 1965, 446p., index; New York: Random House, 1971, 446p., index.
Conscience: The Search for Truth. Introduction by Merrily E. Taylor. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979, 159p. Contains five texts previously published in limited editions in the 1950s by Stourton Press (Cape Town): Memory; Surface Personality; Self-Will; Negative Emotions and Notes on Work.
A Further Record Chiefly of Extracts from Meetings Held by P. D. Ouspensky between 1928 and 1945. Privately printed limited edition of 20 copies. Cape Town: Stourton Press, 1952, 347p., index. (Copy in the P. D. Ouspensky Collection, Yale.) Subsequently published as A Further Record: Extracts from Meetings 1928–1945. London and New York: Arkana, 1986, 318p., index
These three posthumous collections, The Fourth Way , Conscience and A Further Record, offer selections of Ouspensky’s talks and answers to questions, transcribed at private meetings in England and the United States, from 1931 to 1946. These are edited and arranged to elucidate the ideas Ouspensky was transmitting on ‘the system.’
Autobiographical Fragment. Written in 1935, this brief sketch was first published in the second enlarged edition of his The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution (1974) Knopf, then in Remembering Pytor Demianovich Ouspensky (1978) a brochure compiled and edited by Merrily E. Taylor for Yale University Library. It was subsequently issued as an appendage to A Further Record: Extracts from Meetings, 1928–1945 Q.V. (1986) Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ouspensky sketches his childhood, family, early studies, travel, the development of his philosophy and his relationship with Gurdjieff.
In Search of the Miraculous. Read by Laurence Rosenthal. Berkeley, California: Audio Literature, 1994. One 90 minute cassette audio tape abridged from the Harcourt Brace, 1949 edition.
In Search of the Miraculous: fragments of an unknown teaching. A film directed by Zivko Nicolic, script adaptation by Milan Peters, based on the book by P. D. Ouspensky. Fairway Films (Sydney, Australia) in association with Znak Productions in Belgrade, 1998, 42 min. black & white.
Effectively telescopes Ouspensky’s book, glimpses of the teaching he received from Gurdjieff and a brief characterization of their difficult relationship, into 42 minutes of film interspersed with archival footage of Russia and the Revolution. The ending focuses on Katherine Mansfield’s appreciative soliloquy about Gurdjieff’s Institute at Fontainebleau, as reported by Ouspensky.
Blake, A. G. E.
An Index to In Search of the Miraculous. Ripon, North Yorkshire: Coombe Springs Press, 1982. 48p.
Butkovsky-Hewitt, Anna
With Gurdjieff in St. Petersburg and Paris. With the assistance of Mary Cosh and Alicia Street. New York: Weiser, 1978, 157p.
Eadie, Peter Macgregor
The Bridge: a journal issued by the Study Society. (London) No. 3 Winter, 1978, 66p., No. 12, Autumn, 1997, 257p.,
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple
“The Merging of Time and Space: The Fourth Dimension’ in Russia from Ouspensky to Malevich.” The Structurist (Saskatoon, Canada) No. 15/16, 1975/1976, pp. 97–108.
Freemantle, Christopher
“Ouspensky.” in Man, Myth and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural [first published as a weekly serial]. London: Pinell, 1972, pp. 2092–2093; 12 vols., revised, Freeport, N. Cavendish, [1982], 3268p.
Lachman, Gary
“From Russia with Love: Eros and Spirit in the Russian Fin de Siècle.” Gnosis (San Francisco) No. 43, Spring 1997.
“Ouspensky in London.” The Quest (Denville, N J.) XI (3), August, 1998. pp. 38–43, 50.
Landau, Rom
God is My Adventure: A Book on Modern Mystics, Masters and Teachers. London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1935, 426p.; New York: Knopf, 1936, 411p., bib.; London: Faber and Faber, 1941, 255p.; London: Allen and Unwin, 1964.
Munson, Gorham
“Black Sheep Philosophers: Gurdjieff—Ouspensky—Orage” Tomorrow (New York) XI (6), Feb. 1950, pp. 20–25.
Nott, C. S.
Further Teachings of Gurdjieff: Journey Through This World. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; (1969) New York: Samuel Weiser,1969.
Priestley, J. B.
Man and Time. London: Aldus Books, 1964, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964, 319p.; New York: Dell, 1968, 319p., index.
Seton, Marie
“The Case of P. D. Ouspensky.” Quest (Calcutta) No. 34, July/Sept. 1962, pp. 36–44.
Taylor, Merrily E.
Remembering Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky. Compiled and edited by Merrily E. Taylor. New Haven: Yale University Library, 1978, 45p.
Walker, Kenneth
Venture with Ideas. London: Jonathan Cape, 1951, 192p.; New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1952, 212p.: New York: Weiser, 1972, 192p.; 2nd edition, revised. London: Luzac Oriental, 1995, 160p.
The Making of Man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963, 163p., index.
Webb, James
The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers. New York: Putnam’s, 1980, 608p.; London: Thames & Hudson, 1980; Boston: Shambhala, 1987.
These are representative works by Ouspensky’s two most prominent pupils. While they contain no overt discussion of Ouspensky, their inspiration and framework clearly show his profound influence. Interested readers may want to explore the larger body of Nicoll’s and Collin’s work.
Nicoll, Maurice
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. 5 Volumes. 1766p. (continuous pagination). London: Vincent Stuart, Vols. 1–2–3, 1954, 1964. Vols. 4–5, 1966, 1968.; 5 Vols. Reprinted, Boulder: Shambhala, 1984.; York Beach: Weiser, 1996, 6 Individually paged volumes including a 216 p. index.
The New Man: An Interpretation of Some Parables and Miracles of Christ. London: Stuart & Richard, 1950, 152p.; New York: Hermitage House, 1951; with a foreword by Jacob Needleman, Baltimore: Penguin, 1972, 184p.; London: Watkins, 1981, 153p.
Living Time and the Integration of the Life. London: Vincent Stuart, 1952, 252p., index, bib.; New York: Hermitage House, 1952, 252 p., London: Watkins, 1976, 252p., New York: Weiser,[no date.]; Utrecht: Eureka Editions, 1998, 294p., index, bib.
Collin [Smith], Rodney
The Theory of Eternal Life. London: Privately printed [1950]: Cape Town: Stourton Press, 1950: London: Vincent Stuart, 1956; London: Stuart & Watkins, 1968, 126p.; Robinson & Watkins, 1974, [134p,].; Boston: Shambhala, 1984, 126p.
The Theory of Celestial Influence: Man, the Universe, and Cosmic Mystery. London: Vincent Stuart, 1954, 392p., index; New York: Weiser, 1973, 393p.; Boston: Shambhala, 1984, 392p.; London & New York: Arkana, 1993, 392p.
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Copyright © 1999 J. Walter Driscoll This webpage © 1999 Gurdjieff Electronic Publishing Featured: Winter 1998/1999 Issue, Vol. II (2) Revision: December 18, 2019 |