Bluest Eye by Morrison Toni, First Edition (26 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition, 3rd printing (number line). Hardcover with dust jacket (DJ). Book condition is Very Good, DJ condition is Very Good-. Pastedowns and blank endpages lightly foxed. Edges of textblock lightly tanned, with top and bottom edges foxed/speckled, causing some pages to have a few stray foxing spots at the tops of these edges (but overall quite minor). Otherwise, text block is very handsome and clean - pages are bright, clean, and clear of writing, markings, highlighting, etc. Binding tight. Hinges tight. Hardcover board corners curling in at top. Edges of hardcover boards sunned and lightly foxed. Fabric on spine lightly foxed. DJ has moderate surface/superficial scratching and scuffing. Some surface soiling/blemishing on and around spine. DJ bumped and lightly crumped (but not ripped) at top/bottom of spine and top corners. Some light sparse speckling on inside of DJ. DJ yellowed/tanned along edges and spine.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. The Bluest Eye Author: Toni Morrison Publication: Knopf, New York, New York Edition: First Edition, First Printing Binding: Hardcover Condition: A Fine copy in a Fine mylar wrapped dustjacket Description: THIS IS FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING BOOK IS FROM PULITZER AND NOBEL PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR TONI MORRISON! First edition, first printing in Fine condition in a mylar wrapped dustjacket in Fine condition (see photos). 215pp. Store Description Welcome to Allen's Rare Books. Each book in our inventory has been personally inspected, exhaustively described, and photographed to meet the standards of the discerning collector. We encourage prospective customers to contact us with any questions. Terms of Sale We accept all major credit cards via the AbeBooks Shopping Cart. Customers have 30 days to return a purchased volume(s) which do not meet their original description or are otherwise unsatisfactory. We are proud to offer free shipping on all standard (octavo) sized volumes. Shipping Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 lbs. or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know if extra shipping is required. Each order is packed with the utmost care to ensure safe arrival.

Cloth. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. The first UK edition of Morrison's first novel. Bottom corners bumped with associated creasing to the jacket at these corners. Still near fine. Not price-clipped; no other markings.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First British edition. A nice signed first UK edition of Toni Morrison's first book and third novel published in England. Morrison wrote this book while she worked as an editor for Random House, the first black woman to have that position. This novel sold modestly in the 1970s, only gradually being recognized as a major American novel, exploring themes of internalized racism and beauty standards that would influence discussions of representation for decades to come. Morrison later won both a Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature. 164 pages. First UK edition (first printing with no indication of later printings). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket with a publisher's price increase sticker on the flap; signed by Morrison on the half-title page.

Hardcover. First Edition, Second Printing. Octavo, 164 pages. In Very Good condition with a Near Fine dust jacket. Spine white with blue and gray lettering. Dust jacket protected in mylar covering, with price uncut: "$5.95." Light toning along edges of jacket. Foxing to top edge of textblock. Signed flat by Toni Morrison on title page. DL consignment. Shelved Case 7. 1392683. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.

Hardcover. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. 1st Edition. First edition, Signed by Toni Morrison on title page. Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First UK Edition. VG+ Blue cloth boards and gilt to spine. Light edge wear to boards and spine tail. Relaxed binding at head. Front corners bumped, rear corners gently bumped. Light pencil notations to front pastedown. Otherwise clean and unmarked. Very mild edgewear/presumed finger impression to fore edge of pages 9-25 or so. A few tiny spots to last endpaper/rear pastedown. Clipped DJ, VG+, with mild foxing to edges. Chatto sticker to front flap. Covered in mylar. Please ask to see images for your satisfaction. Shelf 10b.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 8vo, blue clothbound quarter hardback with publisher's original paper boards. With unclipped Dust Jacket. pp 164 Dust Jacket in Very Good condition, save for minor enclosed tears towards lower front board and some loss towards top, above title. Small stain along top spine. Small enclosed tear on reverse side of Dust Jacket, towards the top. Faint discolouration running across block of text on front Dust Jacket. Toned and browned. Minor signs of fading and rubbing along spine of clothbound hardback, also in Very Good condition. This is a First edition, first printing. Allegedly only 1200-1500 copies were printed. In her powerful debut novel, Morrison looks at the intersection of racism, self-hatred, poverty, and sexuality with realism and her beautifully descriptive writing style. In some ways this is a unique design for the Dust Jacket as it includes the first three opening paragraphs from the first chapter of the book. If one looks closely enough there are little blue dots over each and every "i" which therefore adds a double meaning to the title "The Bluest eye".

Hardcover. Condition: Very good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very good. First Edition. The first edition of Toni Morrison's groundbreaking debut novel, a work that established themes of race, identity, and trauma that would define her later writing. The book is instantly recognizable for its dust jacket, which sets the tone for the book, almost casually mentioning that the main character, a young girl, "was having her father's baby." Published in 1970, while Morrison was working as the first black woman to be an editor for Random House, the novel follows eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove in 1940s Ohio, exploring themes of internalized racism and beauty standards that would influence discussions of representation for decades to come. Initially receiving modest attention, the book gained recognition through university courses and is now acknowledged as a significant work in Morrison's Nobel Prize-winning career. 164 pages. First edition (stated). A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. The board edges are slightly faded and there is a small piece missing from the edge of the rear free endpaper. The white jacket has tanned a bit and has edgewear at the top of the spine.

First British edition. Jacket design by Kate Cary. First British edition. The first British edition of Morrison's landmark first novel, published nine years after its initial American publication, featuring a stunning unclipped dust jacket. One of the scarcest books of the 1970s regardless of genre, the book's frank discussions of sensitive topics such as racism, incest, religion, and child molestation has provoked continuous attempts to remove it from schools and public libraries across the United States, landing it as the American Library Association's 10th most banned book from 20102019. Ignoring the controversy, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company developed it as a stage play in the early 2000s, premiering it in February 2005, and it had a limited Off-Broadway run in New York the following year. Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, becoming the first African-American woman to do so. Blue cloth, stamped in gilt on spine; two-color illustrated dust jacket, unclipped; fine.

Softcover. First Edition; First Printing. Near Fine in wraps. ; Signed by Toni Morrison on title page. ; Signed by Author.

Cloth. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: fine. Signed first English edition of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, in fine condition. (illustrator). First English Edition, First Impression. Octavo, 164pp. Blue cloth, title in gilt on spine. No additional printings listed on copyright page. Solid text block, a fine example. In the publisher's exceptional dust jacket, £4.95 retail price on front flap. Signed by the author in black ink on the title page. A beautiful, scarce example of the author's first published book. The true first edition of the Bluest Eye was published in the United States in 1970 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was an influential American novelist, essayist, editor, and professor, celebrated for her profound exploration of the African American experience. With a career spanning several decades, Morrison authored acclaimed works such as "Beloved," "Sula," and "Song of Solomon," earning her numerous prestigious awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Beyond her literary achievements, Morrison was a trailblazer for African American writers, using her powerful voice to advocate for social justice and illuminate the complexities of race, gender, and identity in American society.

8vo. First UK edition. Original blue hardcovers, gilt. Jacket design by Kate Cary. Tiny abrasion to the publisher's name at the foot of the d/w spine. Fine in near fine, unclipped d/w. The author's first novel. First published in the USA in 1970. A lovely copy.

First edition of Morrison's classic first book. Octavo, original half cloth. Boldly signed by Toni Morrison on the title page. Near fine in a very good first issue dust jacket with the $5.95 price and 1070 on the bottom of front flap, with some expert restoration. Dust jacket design by Herb Lubalin and Jay Tribich. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell slipcase. Set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941, The Bluest Eye is something of an ensemble piece. The point of view is passed like a baton from one character to the next, with Morrison's own voice functioning as a kind of gold standard throughout. The focus, though, is on an 11-year-old black girl named Pecola Breedlove, whose entire family has been given a cosmetic cross to bear: You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it. There are far uglier things in the world than, well, ugliness, and poor Pecola is subjected to most of them. She's spat upon, ridiculed, and ultimately raped and impregnated by her own father. No wonder she yearns to be the very opposite of what she is--yearns, in other words, to be a white child, possessed of the blondest hair and the bluest eye. "Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is an inquiry into the reasons why beauty gets wasted in this country. The beauty in this case is black. [Miss Morrison's prose is] so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry.I have said 'poetry,' but The Bluest Eye is also history, sociology, folklore, nightmare and music" (John Leonard, The New York Times).

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Unclipped dust jacket, moderate edge-toning, no ruffling, chipping or tears, in mylar cover. Tight binding solid boards with tiny bump to bottom front and sharp corners, slightly faded spine strip with bright silver lettering, light foxing to edges, otherwise clean, unmarked pages throughout. Photos available on request. Stated 1st edition. From the library of Wilfrid Sheed, essayist, novelist and literary critic, whose collection we purchased. Announcement from Random House (postmarked 12/23, 1985) for Dinesen's Out of Africa movie tie-in addressed to Mr. Sheed at his Sag Harbor residence, that he presumably used as a book mark, laid in.

First UK edition, 8vo., pp.(iii),164, blue hardcover, gilt; slight marking/foxing to fore-edges, lower corner of rear board lightly bruised, an otherwise fresh and near-fine copy, in very good unclipped pictorial dust-jacket, which has light creasing to laminate coating where price label has been removed.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. The Bluest Eye is the great American author and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison's first novel, a powerful work about racism and privilege in the United States. That there have been and continue to be numerous attempts to ban it from American schools is testament to its accuracy. This is the rare first UK edition, published by Chatto and Windus in 1979. In Fine condition.

First edition, first printing, inscribed by the author on the title page, "To Paul Bartel, Regards, Toni Morrison". Bartel (1938-2000) was an actor and director, best known for his black comedy Eating Raoul (1982). Morrison wrote the novel, her debut, "in stolen moments between her day job as a book editor and her life as the single mother of two young sons" (Fox). It received little critical attention on publication, though the distinguished critic John Leonard was unstinting in his praise, describing Morrison's prose as "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (Leonard). It has since been widely praised for "cut[ting] a new path through the American literary landscape by placing black girls at the center of the story" (Als). Its lasting importance was recognized in 1993, when Morrison's received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Hilton Als, "Toni Morrison's Profound and Unrelenting Vision", New Yorker, 27 January 2020; Margalit Fox, "Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88", New York Times, 6 August 2019; John Leonard, "Three First Novels on Race", New York Times, 13 November 1970. Octavo. Original blue quarter cloth, spine lettered in silver, grey paper-covered sides. With dust jacket. Book label of William A. Strutz (1934-2024) to front pastedown. Spine ends lightly sunned; jacket unclipped, lightly toned as usual, vertical creases to flaps as often: a near-fine copy in near-fine jacket.

First edition, first printing, of the author's influential first novel, which "cut a new path through the American literary landscape by placing black girls at the center of the story" (Als). Its lasting importance was recognized in 1993 when Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Morrison wrote the novel "in stolen moments between her day job as a book editor and her life as the single mother of two young sons" (Fox). It received little critical attention on publication, though the distinguished critic John Leonard was unstinting in his praise, describing Morrison's prose as "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (Leonard). Hilton Als, "Toni Morrison's Profound and Unrelenting Vision", New Yorker, 27 January 2020; Margalit Fox, "Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88", New York Times, 6 August 2019; John Leonard, "Three First Novels on Race", New York Times, 13 November 1970. Octavo. Original blue quarter cloth, spine lettered in silver, grey paper-covered sides. With dust jacket. Spine ends lightly bumped and sunned, occasional ink underlinings to contents; jacket unclipped, slightly toned and with a faint vertical crease to front flap, as usual: a very good copy in near-fine dust jacket.

Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. First edition stated, first printing. Signed by Toni Morrison and inscribed to a former owner on the front free endpaper. Bound in publisher's original paper boards over blue cloth spine lettered in silver. Near Fine with light toning to contents. In a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket, lightly toned and with some faint streaks of browning as typically seen with this dust jacket, and a small strip of offsetting to the blindside at the spine. A much nicer copy than normally encountered of the author's scarce first novel.

Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. First edition stated, first printing. A review copy with publisher's slip laid in. Bound in publisher's original paper boards over blue cloth spine lettered in silver. Near Fine with slight roll to the spine, light toning to edges. In a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket with toning and light edge wear with a short closed tear at the top edge of the front panel, a thin scratch to the rear panel, browning to the blindside and flaps. A review copy of the author's scarce first novel.

Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First British Edition. First British edition, first printing. Bound in publisher's blue cloth-affect paper-covered boards with titles printed in gilt on the spine. Near Fine with slight lean to the binding, light wear to spine ends, former owner name to front free endpaper and pages lightly tanned. In a Near Fine price-clipped dust jacket with light toning and light edge wear, foxing to the flaps and blindside.

First Edition. THE BLUEST EYE, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970, first edition, head of spine gently bumped, else fine in just about fine dust-wrapper. The Nobel laureate's first book.