"MY FATHER LOST ME TO THE BEAST AT CARDS"

CARTER, Angela. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. London: Victor Gollancz, 1979. Slim octavo, original black paper boards, original dust jacket. $1200.

First edition of "one of Carter's most successful books… a retelling of traditional fairy stories" (DNB).

"The Bloody Chamber is a central collection of revisionist-fantasy versions of fairy-tales and other material, couched in an archaizing diction reminiscent of the work of Isak Dinesen—an influence acknowledged by Angela Carter—and directed in the main to a rewriting of the traditional cloistral view of women expressed in the literature" (Clute & Grant, 171). Carter "writes a prose that lends itself to magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality… dreams, myths, fairy tales, metamorphoses, the unruly unconscious, epic journeys, and a highly sensual celebration of sexuality in both its most joyous and darkest manifestations" (Ian McEwan). "A wonderfully written book, ironical, cerebral, elegant" (Joyce Carol Oates). "The Bloody Chamber" and "The Tiger's Bride" appear here for the first time. "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" originally appeared in British Vogue. "Puss-in-Boots" was written for a 1979 anthology, The Straw and the Gold, but the anthology was never published. "The Erl-King" originally appeared in Bananas. "The Snow Child" was initially broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 programme Not Now, I'm Listening. "The Lady of the House of Love" first appeared in print form in The Iowa Review, but was actually written as a radio play entitled Vampirella which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1976. "The Werewolf" first appeared in South-West Arts Review. "The Company of Wolves"—perhaps the most famous work in this collection, known for its Neil Jordan film adaptation—originally appeared in Bananas. "Wolf-Alice" first appeared in Stand. All previously published or aired works were revised for publication in this collection.

Book with only light staining to a few leaves, dust jacket with faint stain to edge of front panel and only slightest rubbing and soiling mainly to extremities. A near-fine copy.