Autobiography. Volume I, 1907-1937: Journey East, Journey West

San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981. Stated first ed., first printing (full number line). Quarto in jacket; ix, 335 pages): frontispiece; 25 cm. Index A tight and clean near fine copy in very good(-) to good(+) edge-worn and edge-chipped jacket, now in archival mylar. Hardcover. ISBN: 9780060621421, 0060621427

The first volume in Eliade's acclaimed three-volume autobiography. "Mircea Eliade (1907 – 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but (at least in the minds of the religious) actually participate in them."—Wikipedia.