Trilby (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Du Maurier, George

3.32

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9780192833518: Trilby (Oxford World's Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192833510 ISBN 13: 9780192833518

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999

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First published in 1894, the story of the diva Trilby O'Ferrall and her mentor, Svengali, has entered the mythology of that period alongside Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. Immensely popular for years, the novel led to a hit play, a series of popular films, Trilby products from hats to ice-cream, and streets in Florida named after characters in the book. The setting reflects Du Maurier's bohemian years as an art student in Paris before he went to London to make a career in journalism. A celebrated caricaturist for Punch magazine, Du Maurier's drawings for the novel--of which his most significant are included here--form a large part of its appeal.

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From the Publisher:

Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards.

From the Back Cover:

Du Maurier’s Trilby was the novel sensation of the 1890s. Du Maurier had spent a good deal of his life as a child and later as an art student in Paris; when he turned from his career in journalism and magazine illustration to novel writing he found enormous success with a novel divided as his own life had been between Paris and London. Billee, an English artist living the Bohemian life abroad, meets and falls in love with Trilby, a Parisian model. Differences in social class doom their romance, but Trilby, taught by the mysterious hypnotist Svengali to sing like “some enchanted princess” becomes a famous entertainer. As it turns out, however, her talent and her possession of her own mind have become dependent on Svengali maintaining his spell over her.

Originally serialized in Harper’s Monthly in 1894, Trilby was published with 120 illustrations by the author (who was also a celebrated caricaturist for Punch). All 120 illustrations were included in the Harper and Brothers New York edition of 1894, and in a British edition published the following year in London. The first British publication in book form, however, (by Osgood & McIlvaine in 1894) did not include any of Du Maurier’s illustrations, and many editions since that time have included no illustrations or reproduced only a selection of the illustrations. Particularly given that many of the illustrations are integrated into the page of text in which they appear, Trilby is ideally suited to be made available again in a facsimile reprint.

In its first year of publication, the book sold over 200,000 copies, and before long it had also been adapted for the stage. The name “Svengali” came to be applied to any hypnotist and the image of Svengali carved a lasting place in the popular imagination. Perhaps the most important expression of 1890s Bohemianism, Trilby has also attracted interest in recent years on account of its presentation of hypnosis and split personality, and for the conflicted but often anti-Semitic presentation of the mysterious Svengali.

This is one of a series from Broadview Press of facsimile reprint editions―editions that provide readers with a direct sense of these works as the Victorians themselves experienced them.

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