The Prophet.

GIBRAN, Kahlil.

Item Number: 138048

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.

Early printing of the author’s masterpiece. Octavo, original cloth, with illustrations by the author. Association copy, signed by the author on the title page, “With the kindest thoughts of Kahlil Gibran 1926″ and on the front free endpaper, “For my friend Cecille from Barbara Young Christmas 1926.” Barbara Young was the pen name of Henrietta Breckenridge Boughton, was an art and literary critic in the 1920s and a poet; she served as Gibran‘s secretary from 1925 until his death, revised and published his book The Garden of the Prophet, and published a study of his life This Man from Lebanon. In very good condition. Rare and desirable signed and with noted provenance.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death. It has been translated into well over 40 languages. By 2012, it had sold more than nine million copies in its American edition alone since its original publication in 1923.