LEISURE THE BASIS OF CULTURE

First edition in English, first printing. Publisher's original green cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very good copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright with just a little rubbing to the spine tips and corners. The contents, with a previous owner's name to the front endpaper and some spotting to the prelims and terminal pages, are otherwise clean throughout. Complete with the rubbed, nicked, toned and spotted dustwrapper that has small chips to the fold corners and has been clipped and repriced (10s 6d net) to the lower front flap by the publisher prior to first publication. Scarce.

First English edition of Pieper's influential philosophical essays arguing that genuine culture arises from leisure and contemplation rather than work and productivity. The volume comprises two closely related essays, 'Muße und Kult' (Leisure The Basis of Culture) and Was heißt Philosophieren? (The Philosophical Act), translated from the German by Alexander Dru and prefaced by a seven-page introduction by T. S. Eliot. First published separately in Germany in 1948, the latter essay originated as a series of lectures delivered in Bonn during the summer of 1947. The present translation was issued on 25 January 1952 in an edition of 3,152 copies. An American edition, also featuring Eliot's introduction, was published by Pantheon Books the following month. (Gallup B65).