NY, Harper & Row, (1977). Annie Dillard's own copy of this small book of poetic meditations, marked by her on nearly two dozen pages (roughly a third of the book). The great majority of the markings serve as a map, as though for a reading, including the instruction "pause." Perhaps two or three instances of editing. Holy the Firm was Dillard's third book, and her intention was to write about whatever happened on Lummi Island, where she was living, during a three-day period. When an airplane crashed on the island on the second day, it caused her to meditate on the problem of pain, and how a just and merciful God would allow natural evil to occur in the world. These meditations on pain, God, and evil continued to resonate throughout her work, particularly in her award-winning volume For the Time Being, published in 1999, more than 20 years after this book. Near fine in a very near fine dust jacket. "Ex Libris Annie Dillard" bookplate on the verso of the half title. A unique copy of one of the volumes that characterizes Dillard's unique place in our literature: Holy the Firm is only 66 pages long but took her 14 months of writing full-time to complete, and it embodies her concerns with philosophy -- in Greek, literally, "the love of wisdom" -- as well as religion, metaphysics, the natural world, and the place of human life and consciousness within and among all of these. [#032716] SOLD