The Snow Leopard was published by the Viking Press, New York, in 1978, in a first printing priced at $10.95. It won the National Book Award for Contemporary Thought in 1979 (and later, in 1980, the equivalent of the National Book Award for nonfiction). The book is many things at once: a journal of a 250-mile trek through the Dolpo region of northwestern Nepal; a study of Himalayan ecology and Buddhism; a meditation on grief (Matthiessen’s wife Deborah had died of cancer in 1972); and a quest narrative in which the object of the quest — the snow leopard — may or may not appear.
The Journey
In September 1973, Matthiessen and the field biologist George Schaller set out from Pokhara, Nepal, to reach the Crystal Monastery at Shey, near the Tibetan border. Schaller’s purpose was scientific: to study the bharal (Himalayan blue sheep) and to observe the snow leopard, one of the rarest and most elusive large cats on earth. Matthiessen’s purpose was less defined — he was grieving, he was practising Zen Buddhism, and he was seeking something he could not name.
The trek is gruelling: high passes above 17,000 feet, treacherous trails, bitter cold, inadequate food. Matthiessen records the daily details — the weather, the terrain, the birds and mammals, the Tibetan and Sherpa porters, the monasteries and prayer flags — with a naturalist’s precision. But the journal entries alternate with passages of Buddhist meditation, reflections on mortality, memories of Deborah, and accounts of the Zen practice he has been studying under the teacher Eido Roshi.
The snow leopard is seen once by Schaller, briefly, in the distance. Matthiessen never sees it. This non-sighting becomes the book’s climax and its deepest lesson: the snow leopard exists whether or not it is seen. The search is the point, not the finding. “In the end, the snow leopard is the snow leopard, and I am me,” Matthiessen writes. The statement sounds simple; it took 250 miles of walking to earn it.
Matthiessen and Buddhism
Matthiessen was one of the few major American writers to practice Zen Buddhism seriously — he was ordained as a Zen priest in 1981. The Snow Leopard is his most explicit engagement with Buddhist philosophy, but it wears its learning lightly. The Buddhist concepts — impermanence, non-attachment, the emptiness of the self — are tested against the physical reality of the mountains. Matthiessen does not preach; he describes what he sees and feels, and the Buddhist framework emerges naturally from the experience.
Collecting The Snow Leopard
First edition (1978, Viking): First printing, $10.95.
Identification points:
- Viking Press colophon
- First printing stated
- Blue cloth binding
- Dust jacket with snow leopard illustration
Approximate market values:
- Fine/Fine in dust jacket: $500–$1,500
- Signed first edition: $1,500–$4,000
- Without jacket: $50–$150
Value trajectory: Steady demand among collectors of nature writing, travel literature, and Buddhist-themed works. Matthiessen signed books generously (he died in 2014), and signed copies are available. The book’s canonical status in nature writing ensures permanent interest. The National Book Award adds institutional prestige.
The Leopard You Don’t See
The book’s power resides in the absence at its centre. The snow leopard — Panthera uncia, perhaps 5,000 remaining in the wild — exists as a rumour, a track in the snow, a presence felt but not confirmed. Matthiessen’s failure to see it is not a failure of the expedition but its most important result. The book teaches that the deepest experiences cannot be possessed, only approached — and that approaching them, with full attention and without expectation, is what constitutes a life.