The Celestial Hunter (First American Edition)

Calasso, Roberto

ISBN 10: 0374120064 / ISBN 13: 9780374120061

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2020

About this Item

New York, FSG, 2020. First American edition. First printing (with full number line including 1). Hardbound. Fine in a fine jacket. A clean tight unread copy. Remainder dot top edge. Publisher's price intact on front jacket flap ($35.00). Comes with archival-quality mylar jacket protector. Smoke-free. Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon.

Seller Inventory # C-Lit

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Celestial Hunter (First American Edition)
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374120064
• ISBN 13: 9780374120061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Italian Literature

About this title

Synopsis

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"[Calasso's] flow of associations leaves you feeling not out of your depth, but smarter and better read." --The New York Times Book Review

The eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s monumental series on the primal forces of civilization

The eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s singular work in progress that began in 1983 with The Ruin of Kasch, The Celestial Hunter is an inspired and provocative exploration of mankind’s relationship with myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation.

There was a time, even before prehistory, when man was simply a defenseless animal. The gods he worshiped took the form of other beasts or were the patterns of the stars he saw above him each night in the sky, which he transformed into figures and around which he created stories. Soon, however, man learned to imitate the animals that attacked him and he became a hunter. This transformation, Calasso posits, from defenseless victim to hunter was a key moment, the first step on man’s ascendance to power. Suddenly the notion of the hunter became fundamental. It would be developed over thousands of years through the figures that became central to Greek mythology, including the constellations. Among them was Orion, the celestial hunter, and his dog, Sirius.

Vivid and strikingly original, and expertly translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon, The Celestial Hunter traces how man created the divine myths that would become the cornerstones of Western civilization. As Calasso demonstrates, the repercussions of these ideas would echo through history, from Paleolithic to modern times. And they would be the product of one thing: the human mind.

About the Author

Roberto Calasso (1941–2021) was born in Florence and lived in Milan. Begun in 1983 with The Ruin of Kasch, his landmark series now comprises The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Ka, K., Tiepolo Pink, La Folie Baudelaire, Ardor, The Celestial Hunter, The Unnamable Present, The Book of All Books, and The Tablet of Destinies. Calasso also wrote the novel The Impure Fool and eight books of essays, the first three of which have been published in English: The Art of the Publisher, The Forty-Nine Steps, Literature and the Gods, The Madness That Comes from the Nymphs, One Hundred Letters to an Unknown Reader, The Hieroglyphs of Sir Thomas Browne, The Rule of the Good Neighbor; or, How to Find an Order for Your Books, and American Allucinations. He was the publisher of Adelphi Edizioni.