In the Beauty of the Lilies

Fifth Printing of the Trade Edition. 8vo. Pp. [xii], 491, [6]. Sage green cloth, stamped in silver and gilt to spine and upper board, deckled fore-edge. Pale yellow topstain. Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson. Preceded by the Franklin Library edition.

Book takes its title from a line of the abolitionist song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Encompassing the American Century, Updike's seventeenth novel traces the spiritual journey of four generations of the Wilmot family from 1910s Paterson, NJ, to 1990s Lower Branch, CO, with the rise of Hollywood mirroring the decline of the Christian faith. Labelled "[his] most ambitious novel," by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, Updike himself acknowledged it as his favourite novel.