MERTON, Thomas. The Seven Storey Mountain. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1948. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s first state cream cloth lettered in black to the spine, in the dust jacket. A good copy. The cloth with gentle spotting to all panels, but the binding tight and square. The contents largely fine, with some mild occasional spots sporadically throughout. From the library of Bruce Marshall, the Scottish author, SOE agent, and Roman Catholic convert, with his ink inscription to front endpaper. The dust jacket with all four corner neatly cut, but the printed price of £3.00 intact. Several small chips, nicks and creases to all corners, joints and spine tips. The spine panel faded with loss to head and tail, but still a presentable copy of a very scarce volume.
The author’s spiritual classic which ‘may well’—and indeed did—’prove to be of permanent interest in the history of religious experience’, as per Evelyn Waugh’s stub to front panel of jacket. Merton grew up in England moved to America at twenty, as an orphan. He enrolled at Columbia and later joined a Communist group before converting to Roman Catholicism. Years later, he entered the Trappist order where he wrote this book, a spiritual journey of childhood, adolescence, and into the monastery, a bright young mind searching for meaning and purpose. The book was an immediate bestseller, selling over 600,000 copies within the first year, and catapulted Merton into a leading figure in Trappist and Christian literature. The first printing is scarce.
MERTON, Thomas. The Seven Storey Mountain. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1948. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s first state cream cloth lettered in black to the spine, in the dust jacket. A good copy. The cloth with gentle spotting to all panels, but the binding tight and square. The contents largely fine, with some mild occasional spots sporadically throughout. From the library of Bruce Marshall, the Scottish author, SOE agent, and Roman Catholic convert, with his ink inscription to front endpaper. The dust jacket with all four corner neatly cut, but the printed price of £3.00 intact. Several small chips, nicks and creases to all corners, joints and spine tips. The spine panel faded with loss to head and tail, but still a presentable copy of a very scarce volume.
The author’s spiritual classic which ‘may well’—and indeed did—’prove to be of permanent interest in the history of religious experience’, as per Evelyn Waugh’s stub to front panel of jacket. Merton grew up in England moved to America at twenty, as an orphan. He enrolled at Columbia and later joined a Communist group before converting to Roman Catholicism. Years later, he entered the Trappist order where he wrote this book, a spiritual journey of childhood, adolescence, and into the monastery, a bright young mind searching for meaning and purpose. The book was an immediate bestseller, selling over 600,000 copies within the first year, and catapulted Merton into a leading figure in Trappist and Christian literature. The first printing is scarce.
