The Silver Chalice Thomas B Costain 1952 Doubleday HC Dust Jacket Book Club Ed For Sale

Basil, a young Greek silversmith of Antioch, is cheated out of his inheritance and sold into slavery, and then given the commission of a lifetime: to fashion a silver frame to hold the cup used at the Last Supper, its panels carrying the likenesses of the men who sat at that table. Thomas B. Costain's The Silver Chalice was the bestselling novel of its year, and it still does what Costain did better than almost anyone: it puts a reader down inside the first-century world of Antioch, Jerusalem and Rome, among apostles and emperors, Simon the Magician and the early church meeting in secret, and keeps the story moving the whole way. Warner Brothers filmed it in 1954 with Paul Newman in his screen debut. This is the 1952 Doubleday hardcover, a Book Club Edition, complete in its original dust jacket designed by Vera Bock, with maps of ancient Jerusalem and the eastern Mediterranean printed inside the flaps and a photograph of the author on the rear panel.

📚 Book Details

• 🎨 Jacket design: Vera Bock, with region maps printed inside the flaps
• 🏢 Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York
• 📅 Year: 1952. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 52-8754
• 📄 Format: Hardcover in original dust jacket
• 🔖 ISBN: None. This title predates the ISBN system
• 📖 Edition: Book Club Edition, not represented as a trade first printing
• ✅ Best For: Christian and biblical historical fiction readers, first-century church and Roman history, homeschool literature and ancient history units, vintage hardcover shelves, and anyone who knows the Paul Newman film

📋 Condition: Very Good

• ⚠️ Jacket edge wear, creasing and rubbing, heavier top and bottom, with a horizontal crease across the front panel
• ⚠️ Some jacket fading and surface wear consistent with age
• ⚠️ Moderate tanning at the top of the spine; interior paper age-toned throughout
• ✅ The book beneath the jacket is pristine
• ✅ Boards solid and square; binding tight
• ✅ Pages clean, with no writing, highlighting, or heavy soiling seen
• ✅ No library markings of any kind: no labels, stamps, card pocket, date-due slip, or barcode
• ✅ Jacket flaps intact with both maps present

Graded in hand by Papa Duck: the book Very Good, the jacket Good.

📦 Ships via USPS Media Mail · 📍 Gresham, Oregon · Questions welcome — we respond promptly and pack with care.