Heritage of Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha Gautama

New York: Philosophical Library, 1953. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/good. First Edition. Hardcover. This suspenseful retelling of the story of the Buddha, "the holy prince who gave up a kingdom to find Cosmic truths," was penned by Alabama native and professional pianist Celina LuZanne Boozer (1903-1982), who according to The University of Alabama University Libraries once attempted to establish an artists colony on Cheaha Mountain. Remarkably, this Buddhist book by way of Alabama was published by the Philosophical Library, a publishing house founded in 1941 by Dagobert D. Runes to publish the voices of European intellectuals after the 1930s diaspora due to racial and religious discrimination which went on to become the publisher of 22 Nobel Prize winners and leading thinkers as diverse as Albert Einstein, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Rabindranath Tagore, Bertrand Russell, Paramahansa Yogananda, Albert Schweitzer, and more. In the preface, LuZanne shares her surprising journey, led by her love of music, from born and bred Alabama Christian to Eastern mystic. On the rear flap, she notes that all the original proceeds from the sale of the book went to an Indian mission. An overall quite well-preserved first printing of Celina LuZanne's retelling of the story of Siddhartha Guatama, told "in climactic drama of cinematic delineation and in the rare music of Eastern phraseology."

8 5/8" X 5 5/8". 290pp. Striking green and white pictorial dust jacket designed by Ruby Phillips and Nora S. Devine shows moderate wear, with small tears and chipping to edges and extremities, 1/2" closed tear to rear panel, sunning to spine, and substantial foxing and dust soiling. Price sticker to front flap. Green cloth over boards, with publisher's device in light green to upper board and spine lettered in kind. Mild edgewear to binding, with small tears to head and tail of spine. Foxing and toning to endpapers. Binding is firm and sound. Pages are clean and unmarked.