A Visit to Gnani, or Wise Man of the East.

CARPENTER, Edward

Published by George Allen & Company, London, 1911

About this Item

First separate edition. Octavo. Frontispiece portrait of the Gnani (Enlightened One), viii, 67, [1], [2, publisher's ad for other Carpenter titles], [2, printer's slug and blank] pp. Publisher's white cloth over blue boards, gilt spine lettering, black cover lettering. A very good copy indeed.Inscribed to Carpenter to Mrs. Wallace and dated 17 June, 1911. This is a very nice first separate edition of part of Carpenter's (London, 1902) From Adam's Peak to Elephanta. It concerns the spiritual side of his journey and, to wit, there are photographic portraits of the Gnani and of Paramuguru Swami. Edward Carpenter was born at Brighton, England, and educated at Brighton College and Cambridge, where he received his degree in Mathematics. For some time he was Fellow and Lecturer at Trinity Hall: he was eventually ordained, and held a curacy under the Rev. Frederick D. Maurice. But his views were developing; he was not satisfied with the old myths and the old routine; and in 1874 he relinquished his fellowship and orders, and left Cambridge. He now lectured in connection with the University Extension movement in northern towns, incidentally studying social and economic conditions, and thinking out a system of life and philosophy. In 1883 he settled on a small farm near Sheffield and devoted his time to literary work, market gardening, sandal making, and socialist propaganda. The next year he visited Walt Whitman and the United States. The two poets had much in common: each influenced the other. Returning to his own country, Carpenter continued to write his books and cultivate his garden. He was now considered rather dangerously unconventional, as he persisted in living according to his own ideas, and Nature's, rather than those approved of. A poet and writer, Carpenter was a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and a friend of Walt Whitman. He corresponded with many famous figures such as Annie Besant, Isadora Duncan, Havelock Ellis, Roger Fry, Mahatma Gandhi, Keir Hardie, J. K. Kinney, Jack London, George Merrill, E. D. Morel, William Morris, Edward R. Pease, John Ruskin, and Olive Schreiner. As a philosopher he is particularly known for his publication of Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure in which he proposes that civilisation is a form of disease that human societies pass through. An early advocate of sexual freedoms, he had an influence on both D. H. Lawrence and Aurobindo, and inspired E. M. Forster's novel Maurice. One of England's most treasured eccentrics. Seller Inventory # 75431

Bibliographic Details

Title: A Visit to Gnani, or Wise Man of the East.

Publisher: George Allen & Company, London

Publication Date: 1911