The Seven Storey Mountain - 9780281073665

The complete and unedited edition of Thomas Merton's famous autobiography, one of the greatest works of spiritual pilgrimage ever written.

Travelling in his early years with his artist father in the United States, France and England, Thomas Merton prided himself on his worldly accomplishments. His year at Clare College, Cambridge, was indulgent, and although Columbia University to which he went next suited his temperament better, it did nothing to assuage his restlessness. Gradually Merton recognized his need for faith and became a Catholic. With his baptism he began entertaining thoughts of monasticism but his desire to enter the priesthood in a Franciscan monastery came to nothing, and he remained a lay teaching member of the order for some time. However, when he was twenty-seven he made a retreat to a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. This momentous experience convinced him that the silence of the Cistercian Order was what he craved.


The Seven Storey Mountain tells the story of Merton's search for faith and peace in a world which first fascinated and then appalled him. It is written with the profound insight of a man who has seen himself clearly.

‘The Seven Storey Mountain is a book one reads with a pencil so as to make it one’s own.’
Graham Greene

‘A remarkable book, a classic of its kind, written in a vivid, rich and alert style which ranges from crisp vernacular to passionate eloquence, full of picturesque incident and passing at times into religious ecstasy.’
The Times Literary Supplement

‘A book which may well prove to be of permanent interest in the history of religious experience.’
Evelyn Waugh