DURANT, Will [and Ariel DURANT]

The Story of Civilization [a set of ten volumes, here presented in 33 books]

Geneva, Edito-Service SA [and distributed by Heron Books], 1963 to 1968 [all first thus]/ 1935 to 1968.

Octavo, 33 volumes; gilt-decorated quarter black reconstituted leather and olive-green synthetic cloth; a fine set.

Each substantial large octavo volume of the original edition is here presented as three or four smaller octavo volumes, as follows. Volume 1: Our Oriental Heritage (three volumes). Volume 2: The Life of Greece (three volumes). Volume 3: Caesar and Christ (three volumes). Volume 4: The Age of Faith (four volumes). Volume 5: The Renaissance (three volumes). Volume 6: The Reformation (three volumes). Volume 7: The Age of Reason Begins (three volumes). Volume 8: The Age of Louis XIV (three volumes). Volume 9: The Age of Voltaire (three volumes). Volume 10: Rousseau and Revolution (four volumes). From Volume 7, the books were jointly authored by Will Durant and his wife Ariel. They also collaborated on the final volume in this set, 'The Lessons of History' (uniformly bound albeit in a slightly smaller format). The short preface to this volume states in part: 'This postlude needs little preface. After finishing "The Story of Civilization" to 1789 [Volume 10], we reread the ten volumes with a view to issuing a revised edition that would correct many errors of omission, fact, or print. In that process we made note of events and comments that might illuminate present affairs, future probabilities, the nature of man, and the conduct of states.... We tried to defer our conclusions until we had completed our survey of the narrative, but doubtless our preformed opinions influenced our selection of illustrative material. The following essay is the result'. The eleventh and final volume in the original series, 'The Age of Napoleon, 1789-1815', was not published until 1975; it was not made available in this series.