The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain is Thomas Merton's autobiography, completed at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky in 1946 and published in 1948. It begins with Merton's birth in France in 1915, moves through his restless childhood and adolescence in France, England, and the United States, and traces his intellectual and spiritual development at Columbia University, where he converted to Roman Catholicism at age 23. The book closes with Merton's entry into the Trappist order at age 26 and his first years of monastic life. The title refers to Dante's mountain of purgatory in the Commedia.

Merton wrote the book at the suggestion of Dom Frederic Dunne, his abbot at Gethsemani, who had received him as a novice in 1941. The narrative moves between memoir and theological reflection, drawing on Merton's journals of the period. It is the book most responsible for establishing Merton's reputation as a major twentieth-century spiritual writer; Fulton J. Sheen compared it at publication to the Confessions of Augustine. Merton himself later distanced from it, writing in The Sign of Jonas (1953) that "The Seven Storey Mountain is the work of a man I have never even heard of."

Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me, and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom.

p. 410 · Part Three, entry into Gethsemani (1998 Harcourt Brace ed.)

First lines

On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French Mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world.

Contents

Reception

Published in October 1948, The Seven Storey Mountain became an unexpected bestseller. The initial print run was expanded from 5,000 to 12,500; by December 1948 it had sold over 31,000 copies, and by May 1949 100,000 copies were in print. The New York Times initially refused to place it on its nonfiction bestseller list on the grounds that it was "a religious book"; Harcourt Brace responded with a prominent advertisement, and the following week the book appeared on the list, where it remained for nearly a year. Hardcover sales reached over 600,000 copies; paperback sales exceeded three million by 1984. Graham Greene called it "a book one reads with a pencil so as to make it one's own"; Evelyn Waugh edited a British edition under the title Elected Silence. Time credited it with having "redefined the image of monasticism and made the concept of saintliness accessible to moderns." It ranks 75th on National Review's list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century and appears on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's list of the 50 best books of the century.

Frequently asked

What is The Seven Storey Mountain about?

It is Thomas Merton's autobiography, covering his birth in France in 1915, his restless youth in Europe and the United States, his conversion to Roman Catholicism at Columbia University, and his entry into the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani in Kentucky in 1941. The book ends with Merton established as a monk and writer; its title refers to Dante's mountain of purgatory.

Why did the book become so popular when it was published?

Published in October 1948, it sold over 31,000 copies by December and was among the bestselling nonfiction titles of 1949. Advance endorsements from Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Fulton J. Sheen, and Clare Boothe Luce helped launch it. It resonated with postwar readers drawn to questions of meaning, faith, and retreat from a world shaped by war and the atomic bomb.

How did Merton later view the book?

He distanced from it substantially. In The Sign of Jonas (1953) he wrote that "The Seven Storey Mountain is the work of a man I have never even heard of." In a 1966 preface to the Japanese edition he added that the story "no longer belongs to me." His later writings on contemplation, social justice, and interreligious dialogue represent a more open religious sensibility than the book reflects.