Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. first American edition. hardcover. Book VG+: spotting to boards, toning/offset to endpapers, else clean, tight, unmarked./DJ VG-: age/shelf wear, closed tear taped on front cover, front flap creased, NOT clipped ($15.00). 8vo from front flap: The Virgin Mary's importance is universal, almost incalculable; her cult, one of the richest and most enduring our world has ever produced. Yet in the deepest sense, she herself has remained unknown, remote, and exalted--concealed from our understanding behind the beautiful masks of legend, doctrine, and iconography--her true nature an enigma. Now in this extraordinary book, at once a feat of scholarship and a literary achievement of great beauty, Marina Warner penetrates the many layers of Mariology to bring us something remarkable: a "biography" of the Virgin that reveals her in all her guises from antiquity to the present day, from human woman to Queen of Heaven." #01863.