Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya 1st Ed 1908 The Inner Life Of The United States HC

Up For Sale Today is

The Inner Life Of The United States

by

Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod, Apostolic Proto-Notary

Hardcover. 8vo.  Published by John Murray, London, UK. 1908. xv, 450 pgs. First Edition/First Printing.

Bound in red cloth boards with titles present to the spine and front board. Boards have shelf-wear present to the extremities (spine is darkened and faded). No ownership marks present.  Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid.

There is a striking picture in gold on the front cover of a large group of immigrants arriving in the United States by boat, along with the author and title, also in gold.

In 1908 Count Vay became Abbot of St Martin and in 1917 was appointed Titular Bishop of Skopje. During the first decade of the twentieth century he travelled extensively to visit Roman Catholic missions in China, Japan and Korea. He regarded Korea as the most receptive to Christian missionary work. He also travelled in the United States where he met President Roosevelt, and in Russia, where he met Tsar Nicholas II. In 1906 he wrote to Mrs. de László: “I have many messages for the Master, and hope he will accept later to paint the family of the Tsar. I am so anxious to arrange it as long as there is a Tsar.” Count Vay was also a prolific author, whose  publications include: The Emperors and the Empires of the East (1906), The Art and Aesthetics of the East (1908), British Industry and Applied Arts (1908), To America in an Immigrant Ship (1908), Extracts from an American Diary (1910). His works were translated into English, German and French. In 1907 Count Albert Apponyi, who was then Minister of Education, provided funds for Count Vay to purchase Japanese art during his travels. This material, together with his own large collection which he donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, later formed the nucleus of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of East Asian Art, established in Budapest in 1919.