This volume gathers together twelve essays that Thomas Merton wrote
for various journals between 1947 and 1952, the years that saw the
publication of his best-selling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain,
his ordination to the priesthood, and his initial appointment as spiritual
and intellectual guide of the young monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani.
The essays, most of which have never been reprinted, focus above all
on aspects of the contemplative life but also consider the spiritual
dimensions of literature and the social implications of Christian life.
Issued to coincide with the one hundredth anniversary of his birth,
this collection brings to fruition at long last Merton's own original plan of
publishing these essays as a group and so makes available a previously little
recognized and underutilized resource for understanding and appreciating
a crucial transitional phase in his life as both monk and writer.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Catholic convert, Cistercian monk and hermit, poet, contemplative, social critic, and pioneer in interreligious dialogue, was a seminal figure of twentieth-century American Christianity. Among his many books are his best-selling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain and the modern spiritual classic New Seeds of Contemplation.
Patrick F. O'Connell, a founding member and former president of the International Thomas Merton Society, edits the ITMS quarterly publication The Merton Seasonal and is co-author of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia. He has edited thirteen previous volumes of Thomas Merton's writings, including Selected Essays, Early Essays, 1947-52, Cistercian Fathers and Forefathers, and most recently A Monastic Introduction to Sacred Scripture, the first of three books in the series Novitiate Conferences on Scripture and Liturgy.