London: Faber & Faber, 1950

8vo, pp. 204. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Lacking the dust jacket. Uniform sunning to the spine, irregular sunning to front and rear boards, light spotting to endpapers. A very good copy.

First UK edition, INSCRIBED BY WATTS IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION TO RUTH GOODKIND: ' To my dear friend Ruth - with love from the author - Alan. June 20. 1950.'

Alan Watts was the close friend, and possibly lover, of Ruth Agee Goodkind [1899-1983], a widowed former singer who lived in Evanston, on the outskirts of Chicago. Watts supported Ruth after her 12-year-old son Kenny was killed by a lightning strike, and in 1949 prepared her daughter Anne for confirmation into the Episcopalian church of which he was then a minister. In 1950 Watts was forced to resign his post as Chaplain of Northwestern University after multiple accusations of adultery, and left both his ministry and his marriage.

Watts moved to San Francisco in 1951 where he taught Asian studies, before finding fame in the 1960s with his extensive writings on Zen Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism. He and Ruth remained good friends down the years.

Scarce inscribed, and with an association speaking to a close and enduring friendship, scarcer still.