Bluest Eye: First Edition (29 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Fair. First Edition. The item might be beaten up but readable. May contain markings or highlighting, as well as stains, bent corners, or any other major defect, but the text is not obscured in any way.

Soft cover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. good condition.

Condition: New. 1999. 1st Edition. paperback. A novel that immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family - Pauline, Cholly, Sam and Pecola - in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. It shows how the past savagely defines the present. Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. Num Pages: 224 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 198 x 129 x 12. Weight in Grams: 166. . . . . .…

Soft cover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition.

Hardcover. First Edition Thus; Second Printing. Near Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket.; 215 pages.

Hardcover. First Edition Thus; First Printing. Near Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 215 pages.

Hardcover. First Edition Thus; Second Printing. Very Good+ in a Very Good+ dust jacket. Foxing along text block edges and rear panel. Minor bumping at spine crown and heel.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 215 pages.

Hardcover with Dust Jacket. First Edition. Near Fine in Near Fine DJ. Third printing. Book club edition with after word. Tight. (loc GC3).

Hardcover. First Edition Thus; First Printing. Near Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket.

Hardcover. First Edition; Third Printing. Very Good+ in a Near Fine dust jacket. Foxing along top/side text block edges.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 164 pages.

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. 1st Edition. First Edition, First Printing with the words "First Edition" printed on the copyright page. A beautiful SIGNED First Edition inscribed to the noted African-American historian and scholar, Dr. Helen Johnson. This unique inscribed copy marks the intersection of two incredibly accomplished women and their innovation in the fields of African-American literature. Morrison went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993. Johnson paved the way for a number of Afro-American research programs and academic initiatives, only a few small examples of their lifetime achievements. This ORIGINAL dustjacket is rich in color and has the publisher's $5.95 printed price present on the front flap. The book is bound in the publisher's cloth and is in excellent condition. The binding is tight with NO cocking or leaning and the boards are crisp with minor wear to the edges. A superb copy SIGNED by the author housed in a custom clamshell box for preservation. Signed by Author(s).…

Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+. First British Edition, First Impression. A Near Fine Book in a Very Good or Better Dust Jacket, Unclipped (£4.95). Book has trivial shelf wear and sunning to extremities, otherwise bright and fresh. Text is unmarked. Binding is tight and square. Stunning and Iconic dust jacket designed by Kate Cary is lightly bumped to corners, tail, and crown. Jacket panels are a trifle toned, otherwise fresh and crisp. Hardcover. Octavo. [vi], [1], 2-164pp. Publisher's Blue Cloth, Stamped Gilt Detailing.…

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. 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: Good. Stated First Edition. A clean Ex-library copy with no stickers or card sleeve, a single stamp to the title page. Rubbing and toning overall, binding shaken, a lean, and some shelf wear. The jacket with light rubbing and toning, minor wear to the edges, and wrapped in mylar and pasted to the book via the flaps. Not price clipped. Jacket price of $5.95. The Bluest Eye was Morrison's first novel and was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1970, when she was aged 39. It was favorably reviewed in The New York Times by John Leonard, who praised Morrison's writing style. The novel did not sell well at first, but the City University of New York put The Bluest Eye on its reading list for its new Black studies department, as did other colleges, which boosted sales. The book also brought Morrison to the attention of the acclaimed editor Robert Gottlieb at Knopf, an imprint of the publisher Random House. Gottlieb later edited all but one of Morrison's novels. Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Photos upon request. International shipping billed at cost. Please note that the buyer is responsible for any customs duties, tariffs, or import fees levied by the destination country.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 164 pages.…

Condition: Near Fine. 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: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 1st Edition. 3rd printing hardcover, 'October 1970', a well preserved clean ex-library copy, jacket is pasted down to covers, one small library stamp on outer text block, small square where bookplate removed or fell off rear endpaper, contents clean and unmarked otherwise, front jacket flap has $6.95 price and code 0977, not a book club edition, early 1970's printing.…

1st U.K. edition, first printing hardcover Fine/fine (price-clipped, with new publisher's price sticker applied).

Boards. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good +. First Edition. INSCRIBED BY TONI MORRISON along the front free endpaper. A solid, very presentable copy to boot of the 1970 stated 1st edition of this landmark in 20th century American literature. A key first book and one of the undisputed highspots in African-American literature as well. Clean and Near Fine (a touch of very light offsetting along the edges) in a crisp, price-intact ($5.95), VG+ dustjacket, with one streak --and several minor flecks-- of mild offsetting at the front flap. Just a hint of minor creasing as well at the spine crown. Still though, crisp and bright and very clean. Though not an uncommon signature, signed copies of the true 1st edition of Toni Morrison's first published book are especially meaningful -- and especially elusive. Signed.…

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Ex library copy with Withdrawn Stamp to the front endpaper, page edges, and rear pastedown. Old tape residue to boards and rear endpaper. Jacket clipped but in nice shape. Scarce first novel by Morrison in a first state jacket.…

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Near Fine. 1st Edition. 216pp. Black cloth, silver titles on spine. Square, clean, unmarked copy, in a crisp dust jacket, housed in a mylar sleeve. Oprah's Book Club designation on front panel. Jacket is unclipped. Signed by Morrison in black on title page. Edition contains a new afterword by Morrison. Debut novel announced a startling new talent and was Morrison's first step toward an eventual Nobel Prize in Literature. Uncommon signed in any edition. Size: 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Signed by Author(s). Book.…

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

Condition: Very Good. First Edition. New York: Pocket Books, 1972. First Pocket Books Edition. 12mo (17.5cm.); publisher's pictorial card wrappers; 160pp.; pictorial Kent cigarette advertisement bound in middle of volume. Wrappers a bit rubbed at margins with a few very shallow nicks along edges; binding sound; textblock uniformly mildly toned due to inferior paper quality; overall a Very Good copy. Scarce first printing of the mass market edition of Toni Morrison's first book, originally published in 1970 to quiet acclaim. Morrison went on to write ten more novels and in 1993 became the first African-American woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, at the time of publication of this edition, "The Bluest Eye" was still Morrison's only book and the first mass market printing remains elusive, especially in sound condition. …

First edition. 164 pp. Publisher's blue quarter cloth over gray paper boards, spine lettered in silver, with the dust jacket. Spine lightly rolled, board edges toned; small nick to top edge of front board. Jacket browned at extremities, as usual; small old crease to rear flap top corner; old price in faded ink below printed $5.95 price; small chip to laminate of top edge of rear panel. Overall nicer than usually seen. Toni Morrison's first novel, written when she could take time early in the mornings before her children awoke. "The novel stemmed from a desire to read a book about how Black girls learned self-loathing, and how the pain of racism became interiorized, without explaining anything to white people; no such book existed, so Morrison wrote it herself. The gut-wrenching novel brings Black girls to center stage, interrogating the normative narrative of the perfect white middle-class family that the character Pecola Breedlove has internalized. Though 'The Bluest Eye' received positive reviews from critics, and Morrison gained recognition as a scholar and critic of the Black experience, the book's sales were modest at the time. Now, 'The Bluest Eye' is an enduring classic that is both taught in schools and frequently targeted by book-banning campaigns" (Bayan Atari, The Dig, Howard University). The innovative jacket design, with the text of the novel beginning on the front cover, (and the tittles of the i's in blue) is by Herb Lubalin and Jay Tribich.…

First edition of Morrison's classic first book. Octavo, original half cloth. Boldly signed by the author on the second free endpaper, "Best wishes Toni Morrison." Near fine in a very good first issue dust jacket with the $5.95 price and 1070 on the bottom of front flap. Dust jacket design by Herb Lubalin and Jay Tribich. Housed in a custom half morocco slipcase. An exceptional example, rare and desirable signed. 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).…

First edition, 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 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 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.…

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.