Description
Signed first edition of The Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith by Will Durant, complete in two volumes.
Large octavo, [two volumes], xviii, 579pp; xviii, [581]-1196pp. Full black cloth, title in gilt on spines. Top edge dyed blue. Endpapers illustrated with maps. This is a first printing, with the same date printed on title and copyright pages. Solid text blocks, light wear to corners, otherwise fine. Not issued with dust jackets. Includes a TLS laid-in at front of Volume I, from James S. Eaton to the recipient of this copy, Carl Draper.
Inscribed on the front flyleaf of Volume I: For — + Carl Draper / with cordial regards from Will Durant 9-25-50.”
Will Durant (1885-1981) wrote The Story of Civilization series alongside his wife Ariel. This copy is Volume IV of an eleven volume set, which was published between 1935 and 1975. The large collection earned the Durants a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Gerald Ford in 1977. This series was unique because of the Durants’ desire to present an “integral history” (as they called it), bringing together all aspects of human life into one cohesive set, as opposed to diving too far into one specific subject matter.
