UNDER THE MOUNTAIN WALL; a chronicle of two seasons in the stone age

New York: The Viking Press, 1962. First Edition, First Issue. Cloth. Fine/Near Fine. 8vo, black cloth with silver title & green author's name, illustrated with 27 B&W photos of the Kurelu & 85 of the Great Kains, drawings throughout text by Otto van Eersel. Mylar-protected photographic dust jacket (price-clipped) taken by Eliot Elisofen, front map endpaper & rear endpaper after a drawing by Michael Rockefeller, xvi + 256 pages + xvii-xxxii. Author's third major work of non-fiction; sixth book. First Issue with photos placed after page 160, This arrangement displeased the author, so many such copies were sold to two book clubs and relabeled as "Book Club Editions" in small capital letters on the bottom of the Table of Contents as is the case here. <br/>The rear endpapers are correctly printed right-side up. <br/><br/>Peter Matthiessen (1927 - 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher, and environmental activist. A co-founder of The Paris Review, he won the National Book Award in both fiction and nonfiction. <br/><br/>Matthiessen's nonfiction featured nature and travel, notably UNDER THE MOUNTAIN WALL (1962): the author's danger-filled chronicle of his involvement with the 1961 Harvard-Peabody Musem expedition to the Netherlands New Guinea. The work follows local tribes throughout their lives: describing them in peace and war; feasting and dealing with death. <br/><br/>The book is dedicated in "warm memory of MICHAEL ROCKEFELLER"--a son of Governor Nelson Rockefeller--who is believed to have been killed by natives in 1961 after he swam to shore soon after the expedition ended.<br/><br/>Other important non-fiction books by the author include The Snow Leopard (1978), Sand Rivers (1981); and works on American Indian issues and history, such as his controversial study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). <br/><br/>Matthiessen's fiction has also been adapted for film: his early story "Travelin' Man" was made into The Young One (1960), and the novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965) into the 1991 film.<br/><br/>In 2008, at age 81, Matthiessen received the National Book Award for Fiction for Shadow Country, a one-volume revision of his three novels set in frontier Florida published in the 1990s.<br/><br/>SUPERIOR CONDITION internally & externally! Tight, bright, clean, without foxing, or remainder marks. Jacket is slightly rubbed and price-clipped.