Coming of Age in the Milky Way.

First edition, early printing of this acclaimed history of humanity's coming to understand its place in the cosmos, tracing the story of astronomy and cosmology from the ancient stargazers to the modern era of relativity and the expanding universe. Octavo, original half cloth, the copyright page bearing the Book of the Month Club notice. Boldly signed by Timothy Ferris on the half-title page. From the library of Peter Matthiessen with his bookplate to the front free endpaper. Peter Matthiessen remains the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both nonfiction (The Snow Leopard) and fiction (Shadow Country). In addition to his literary achievements, he was a co-founder of The Paris Review in 1953, a landmark literary magazine that became renowned for publishing emerging writers and for its influential “Art of Fiction” interview series, which featured major figures such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and T.S. Eliot, and helped shape modern literary discourse. The magazine also played a key role in introducing new voices to a wider audience and has received numerous literary honors over the decades. More than 70 years after its founding in 1953, The Paris Review is still a major, ongoing literary magazine with new issues and contemporary contributors, now published by the Paris Review Foundation. A prominent environmental activist, Matthiessen received the National Book Award for Fiction in 2008 at the age of 81 for Shadow Country. As critic Michael Dirda observed, “No one writes more lyrically [than Matthiessen] about animals or describes more movingly the spiritual experience of mountaintops, savannas, and the sea.” Fine in a very good price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by David Gatti.