Bluest Eye by Morrison Toni, First Edition (19 results)

Paperback. Condition: Good. 1st. Paperback, some cover corner and edge wear, Original Price sticker on cover, Owner's Name inside, Pages are otherwise clean, tight and flat. Item Shrink-wrapped for additional protection.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st 1993 Edition; First Printing. First edition stated. ; Oprah Book Club; 215 pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. Kate Cary (Dustwrapper design) (illustrator). First UK Edition. First impression of the first UK edition. Front cover design by Kate Cary. Black and white photographic portrait of Toni Morrison on back panel of dustwrapper by Bert Andrews. ***Please note that this is an ex-library copy, but is in remarkably clean condition. ***Very good in blue cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine. The boards are clean and uncreased, with just a hint of creasing at the top and tail of the spine. Corners sharp. There is some off-setting to the boards where tape has been removed (which was used by the library to tape the dustwrapper to the book). No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Page block edges beautifully clean. Internally also very good, with no ownership inscriptions, but with the following library marks: lending sheet and inserted card from Warwickshire County Library and barcode on the front free endpaper, some tape offsetting to the endpapers (from the now removed tape), and a library stamp to the title page. Now other noticeable signs of library use. The pages are really clean and uncreased, indicating that the book was rarely lent out - probably going into the library reserve collection quite early on. ***In a near fine colour-illustrated dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of £4.95 net. The dustwrapper is, surprisingly, nearly flawless, as the tape that was used by the library was affixed to a (now removed) thick plastic cover. There is just slight creasing at the top of the spine, and a little surface rubbing at the top of the back panel near the spine (please see scans). ***164 pages. 205mm x 135mm. ***'This is the story of the life of a black American family, the Breedloves, whose individual tragedies are shaped by the pain, injustice and deprivation of their respective experiences. Cholly and his wife Pauline, their son Sam and Pecula, their ugly little twelve-year-old daughter who covets the blue eyes of her privileged blond white schoolfellows, are all of them tortured and degraded by a past in whose making they played no part. Pecula becomes the focus of the mingled love and hatred engendered by this tragic heritage as the novel moves towards a savage and poignant resolution that leaves Sam delinquent, Pauline bereft, Cholly destitute, and Pecula mad. ***Miss Morrison interprets the black American experience to the European reader with a special clarity, but, surrounding the Breedloves with a vivid and original cast of characters from Aunt Jimmy and the Maginot Line to Soaphead Church, she also evokes the tenacity and zest of black America with memorable precision. ***In this haunting study of black childhood, Toni Morrison writes with a passion and lyrical simplicity that holds the reader spellbound from first to last. As John Leonard, writing in the New York Times, said: "The Bluest Eye is an inquiry into the reasons why beauty gets wasted in this country. The beauty in this case is black; the wasting is done by a cultural engine that seems to have been designed to murder possibilities --- and she does it with a prose so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry." (Quote and review quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) ***A very clean ex-library copy of the Nobel Prize-winning author's first book, originally published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1970. First impression of the first UK edition of "The Bluest Eye", complete in the original first impression dustwrapper, in very nice condition. Copies of the first UK edition of this memorable novel are elusive. ***Of interest to collectors of Toni Morrison and rare, signed twentieth century American literature first edition titles. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.

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 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: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. SHEPARDSON BOOKSTALL, 20 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE. SPECIAL SET OF SIX HARDCOVER BOOKS IN ORIGINAL, NEVER OPENED, SHRINK-WRAP. Toni Morrison's Notable awards: Presidential Medal of Freedom, National Humanities Medal, Nobel Prize in Literature and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, et al. SHEPARDSON BOOKSTALL, 20 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE ON ABEBOOKS.

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.

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.

Hardcover. Condition: Poor. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 1st Edition. 164 PAGES . SADLY, AN EX-LIB. COPY OF NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR MORRISON'S CONTROVERSIAL AND OFTEN BAND FIRST NOVEL. AN EXTRAORDINARILY ZEALOUS LIBRARIAN IN WOODSTOCK, CANADA HAS STAMPED THE BOOK 7 TIMES THROUGH THE TEXT, NOT INCLUDING THE 'WITHDRAWN' ON THE FIRST FREE END-PAPER ! MOREOVER, SOMEONE HAS RAN A BLACK MAGIC MARKER IN THE GUTTER IN A NUMBER OF PLACES. PHOTOS ACCOMPANYING THIS LISTING WILL ILLUSTRATE THE DAMAGE THAN MY DESCRIPTION CAN. SLIGHTLY COCKED. UNFORTUNATELY, WRAPPERS WITH BRODART JACKET COVERS, READILY REFLECT LIGHT AND ALAS, DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH WELL NONETHELESS, THIS BOOK IS A FIRST EDITION AND SO STATED (1970) AND EXCEEDINGLY RARE THUS.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Third Printing. Signed by the author on the title page. Second issue DJ. Unclipped DJ in archival cover. Signed by Author(s).

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.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Holt, Rinehart, Winston. New York. 1971. 164 pages. First edition, second printing stated. Rare, original DJ with paragraphs of text printed on the front of the DJ; the back of DJ is a full-panel head shot of a young Toni Morrison rocking an afro. The first printing of this title was published October 1970; in a tiny quantity. An equally small printing of the stated second printing was published just eight months later in June of 1971. This book is tight. Binding and hinges are strong and sound. Gray paper-covered boards quarter-bound in blue cloth; titles stamped in silver on backstrip. Corners are sharp. Endpapers are bright. Pages lay tight in seemingly unread condition. This book's only flaw is minor sunning along panel edges. Original DJ is bright, clean and attractive. $5.95 price-clipped from flap. Laid-in is a hand-signed, adhesive-backed, Toni Morrison bookplate on a publisher's bookplate. A superb stated second printing of the Nobel laureate's first book, in its rare, original text-laden DJ, with a publisher's hand-signed bookplate loosely laid-in. Near fine/Near fine. Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. First Edition, Second Printing. Octavo, 164 pages. In Very Good minus condition with Good dust jacket. Off-white spine with blue and black text. Dust jacket is protected by mylar covering and has light toning, with tape over tear to head edge of front cover, large closed tears to head and tail edge of rear cover, slight tearing to head edge of front cover, and slight chipping to corners. Boards have mild edge wear and small white mark on front joint. Text block has slight creasing and tearing to head edge of pages 21-30. Signed by Toni Morrison on front free endpaper. Includes two photos of Morrison from book signing. Shelved in Case 6. 1371710. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.

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.

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.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First edition. Fine in about fine dust jacket with the usual toning at the extremities of the front panel, but which is otherwise a tight and almost certainly unread copy. Advance Review Copy with publisher's promotional letter laid in; and with a publisher's printed card laid in stating "With the Compliments of the Author." A landmark book and one of the scarcest first books of the 1970s in any genre. This title has taken its place among other notable books that have been banned from public circulation by those too small-minded, myopic, or lazy to distinguish between excellence and prurience. A nice example of the Nobel Laureate's scarce first novel. Morrison was the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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).

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.