Coraline (10th Anniversary Edition)

Gaiman, Neil

ISBN 10: 1408818620 / ISBN 13: 9781408818626

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2012

About this Item

First edition thus, slipcased hardcover, signed by Gaiman and Riddell, and marked no. 254/2250 on the limitation page. Book has a tiny lean to the binding, and overall, is a solid, sharp and clean, Near Fine copy in a like dust jacket, which has a touch of wear to the corners. Housed in a Near Fine slipcase, which has a hint of shelfwear to the corners. Item remains in publisher's shrinkwrap, which was neatly opened along one edge of the opening, and additional images are available by request.

Seller Inventory # 207151

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Coraline (10th Anniversary Edition)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1408818620
• ISBN 13: 9781408818626
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Riddell, Chris
• Edition: First Edition Thus.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fantasy

About this title

Synopsis

There is something strange about Coraline's new home. It's not the mist, or the cat that always seems to be watching her, nor the signs of danger that Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, her new neighbours, read in the tea leaves. It's the other house - the one behind the old door in the drawing room. Another mother and father with black-button eyes and papery skin are waiting for Coraline to join them there. And they want her to stay with them. For ever. She knows that if she ventures through that door, she may never come back.

Review

Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.

What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson