[2] The book details notable members of the Golden Dawn, expected meeting places and other locales, and the society's secret rites and magical rituals.

The Golden Dawn, published under license by Pagan Publishing in 1996, is also set in the Victorian era, a 192-page softcover book designed by Scott Aniolowski, Carrie Hall, Steve Hatherley, Alan Smithee, John T. Snyder, and John Tynes, with artwork by Dennis Detwiller and Daniel Gelon, and cover art by John T.

[3] In the July 1996 edition of Arcane (Issue #8), Steve Faragher gave this book an average rating of 7 out of 10 and cautioned that "There's certainly some excellent information about the Golden Dawn contained in this book, but if you're at all like me, you'll be keeping your players at the outskirts of the Golden Dawn's power structure.

He suggested the book could serve as a "springboard for magic-intensive adventures," although he admitted that would be a "major departure for Cthulhu, which in the past has tended to discourage the indiscriminate use of magic."

In addition to the abundance of information about the society, Swan called the included scenarios "terrific [...] not particular easy to run [...] but they're loaded with memorable scenes."