Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1951. First edition. Octavo. Original cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Inscribed by William F. Buckley Jr. on the front free endpaper. Review copy slip and two-page news release laid in. Near-fine in an excellent dust jacket that shows light wear to extremities and small chip to rear dust jacket panel. Uncommon in this condition. Item #45

Uncommonly bright first edition of the first book published by William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) with his inscription to front free endpaper. First published by the Henry Regnery Company in 1951 when Buckley was twenty-five years old, God and Man at Yale offers a trenchant critique of Yale University’s collectivist and secularist curriculum, concluding that the values that are inculcated at Yale are agnostic as to religion, interventionist and Keynesian as to economics, and collectivist as applied to the relation of the individual to society and government. God and Man at Yale was initially panned by American academics and critics who believed that Buckley’s critique would shortly fade from view. The book, however, struck a chord with the general public, and Buckley capitalized on its unforeseen success and notoriety by launching his modern conservative platform. Buckley himself credited the book’s unlikely success to the “reckless generosity” of John Chamberlain, a prominent Life editorial writer and essayist, who agreed to pen the book’s introduction. Buckley thereafter launched National Review in 1955, serving as the magazine’s editor-in-chief until 1990 and establishing the magazine as the standard-bearer for American conservative thought. God and Man at Yale was ultimately named by TIME Magazine and National Review as one of the 100 greatest non-fiction books of the twentieth century. Signed first editions of Buckley’s first book are uncommon in this condition, and this copy comes with the original review slip and news release laid-in.

Price: $3,000.00