The Seven Storey Mountain by MERTON, Thomas - 1952

New York: Signet / New American Library, 1952. First paperback edition. Softcover. Very good. 12mo, 511pp. First Signet printing, and the first paperback edition. A crisp, clean copy, very good, with the spine gently cupped, and light wear to the corners; still sound. A magnificent copy, SIGNED and INSCRIBED by Merton on the half-title page to his Signet publisher, Kurt Enoch: "For Kurt Enoch. With a Trappist's prayer. F. M. Louis Merton O.C.S.O." Enoch, a German-Jewish refugee from Nazism, had founded Albatross Books before WWII, and after settling in the United States, became the Publisher of Penguin Books. Soon after, he founded the New American Library, seeing an opportunity to reprint classics and high literature and nonfiction in mass-market paperback format (a medium which, up to that point, had been associated with pulp and "un-serious" literature). Enoch's interest in publishing authors like Merton in a cheap and accessible format was revolutionary in the rather stuffy world of American publishing. Martin Levin, one-time president of the Association of American Publishers, had this to say about Enoch: "New American Library was a brilliant concept well ahead of its time. Kurt Enoch brought his special skills to this line of books. He demonstrated that the classics, from Shakespeare to '1984,' and Mickey Spillane, William Styron and James Bond, could all live comfortably on one publishing list. His special pride was that this company flourishes today as it did when he was its first president." (Enoch's obituary, New York Times, 2/17/82).

Signed copies of Merton's best book in any printing or edition are genuinely rare, and those with a meaningful association still rarer. Much more than an autobiography, this work explores Merton's existential quest for faith and meaning, and remains among the best books ever written about these topics. Dell'isola A7c.