Beloved
by Toni Morrison
- Used
- Very Good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good
- Seller
-
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. First Thus. Hardcover. Very Good. Octavo. The first printing of the Gift Edition issued to accompany the Oprah Winfrey motion picture, with the wrap-around blurb, new historical endpaper text and concluding note on the author and new colophon. A pristine copy in an archival Mylar jacket cover.
Synopsis
Beloved (1987) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Toni Morrison. Morrison was inspired to write the story after finding a newspaper article about the legal case of Margaret Garner. Garner escaped slavery in Kentucky to the free State of Ohio when U.S. Marshals captured her. To spare her children from being returned to slavery, she killed her two-year-old daughter and attempted to kill her other children. Morrison's novel is set after the Civil War in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but even after the Civil War, she cannot wrest herself from the terrible legacy of slavery. Living with her 18-year-old daughter Denver, she believes the ghost of her eldest daughter haunts her house. When Paul D, a visitor from Sethe's past life on the plantation, comes to visit, he forces the spirit out of the house and gets Sethe and her daughter Denver to go to a carnival. Upon returning, a strange young woman, who calls herself Beloved, is sitting on the house's stoop. Sethe believes that the woman is the daughter she killed to prevent her from being raised in slavery, and Sethe becomes lost in her fantasy of family and caring for the girl. Beloved illustrates the deeply personal and psychological trauma imposed by society's legal brutalities. Beloved is the fourth novel published by Toni Morrison, and many consider it her finest. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988 and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1987. In 1998 a movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover was released.
Read More: Identifying first editions of Beloved
Reviews
On Feb 18 2014, a reader said:
It isn't an easy read. It is often a beautiful read...but beauty and heartbreak are so close together. The lives of the characters have been so difficult, but Toni Morrison tells their stories with incredible depth and empathy. I've only read Beloved once, and I plan to do it again - this is one book that will keep giving on each read.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Alba's Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- BN028603
- Title
- Beloved
- Author
- Toni Morrison
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Thus
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Date Published
- 1998
- Size
- Octavo
Terms of Sale
Alba's Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Alba's Books
Biblio member since 2020
Chicago, Illinois
About Alba's Books
In the mid '90s, Alba started getting calls from people who had a pronunciation problem. /
"Is this...Biblio...um...Biblio...die...sigh...uh?"
/ She enjoyed hearing the attempts. Her father's book business, Bibliodisia, was actually pronounced Biblio-DEE-zhee-uh. "It's a whole books and sex thing," she'd explain. "No, no, not books ABOUT sex. Books so awesome you want them like sex. Biblio plus aphrodisia equals Bibliodisia -- get it?" / Some did, some didn't.
/ Either way, her dad built a musty little empire with a sexy, funny, brilliant, and hard-to-pronounce name that boasted membership in the Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association (MWABA) and exhibited at Chicago book fairs such as the famed Printer's Row. / The way he puts it:
"OUR STOCK IS VARIED AND OF HIGH QUALITY, COMPRISED MAINLY OF HARDCOVER FIRST EDITIONS IN THE BEST AVAILABLE CONDITION FOR THEIR AGE. OUR PRICES VARY AND ARE CONSISTENTLY LOWER THAN WHAT YOU SEE ELSEWHERE, AND WE ARE HAPPY TO CONSIDER REASONABLE OFFERS FOR OUR HIGHER-PRICED BOOKS." (He's hard-of-hearing. Also, Cuban. Alba is Cuban too so she can make that joke.)
/ When he says "our" he means himself, his wife, and his two daughters. It has grown more and more into a family business every year, and now he's nearly ready to hand the reins over to one of his daughters. (Don't worry, the other one's a school teacher.) On Biblio, Alba manages Bibliodisia's inventory and sales under the considerably less sexy, funny, brilliant and hard-to-pronounce business name of Alba's Books.
/ And so another bookseller gets her wings. / The logo's a skyline bookshelf 'cause she's so the big city girl.
"Is this...Biblio...um...Biblio...die...sigh...uh?"
/ She enjoyed hearing the attempts. Her father's book business, Bibliodisia, was actually pronounced Biblio-DEE-zhee-uh. "It's a whole books and sex thing," she'd explain. "No, no, not books ABOUT sex. Books so awesome you want them like sex. Biblio plus aphrodisia equals Bibliodisia -- get it?" / Some did, some didn't.
/ Either way, her dad built a musty little empire with a sexy, funny, brilliant, and hard-to-pronounce name that boasted membership in the Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association (MWABA) and exhibited at Chicago book fairs such as the famed Printer's Row. / The way he puts it:
"OUR STOCK IS VARIED AND OF HIGH QUALITY, COMPRISED MAINLY OF HARDCOVER FIRST EDITIONS IN THE BEST AVAILABLE CONDITION FOR THEIR AGE. OUR PRICES VARY AND ARE CONSISTENTLY LOWER THAN WHAT YOU SEE ELSEWHERE, AND WE ARE HAPPY TO CONSIDER REASONABLE OFFERS FOR OUR HIGHER-PRICED BOOKS." (He's hard-of-hearing. Also, Cuban. Alba is Cuban too so she can make that joke.)
/ When he says "our" he means himself, his wife, and his two daughters. It has grown more and more into a family business every year, and now he's nearly ready to hand the reins over to one of his daughters. (Don't worry, the other one's a school teacher.) On Biblio, Alba manages Bibliodisia's inventory and sales under the considerably less sexy, funny, brilliant and hard-to-pronounce business name of Alba's Books.
/ And so another bookseller gets her wings. / The logo's a skyline bookshelf 'cause she's so the big city girl.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Blurb
- The blurb refers to the commentary that appears on the dust jacket flaps or the rear of the dustjacket. In the case of a...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- Colophon
- The colophon contains information about a book's publisher, the typesetting, printer, and possibly even includes a printer's...
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