Buy this book on-line

Ozick, Cynthia : Portrait Of The Artist As A Bad Character And Other Essays On Writing

Random House/Pimlico Original Titles, London, England, 1996

ISBN 0712674845

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 336 pages. Retrospective collection of literary essays. One of Cynthia Ozick's finest achievements. The First Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a softcover original only. It is an Import title, issued in the United Kingdom and a few Commonwealth nations only. None of the copies was commercially sold in the United States. There is NO American Edition. The First Edition is now rare. Presents Cynthia Ozick's "Portrait of The Artist As A Bad Character And Other Essays On Writing". A conceptually coherent, "stand-alone" collection that overlaps with not one, but several, separate collections published in the United States. "Touches on the inner life of literature and of the literary artist. Among the subjects covered are childhood's passionate reading; ambition; the decline of the book as a universal habit; the consequences of gender politics; and the deceptions and impersonations of art" (Publisher's blurb). Hence the brilliantly evocative Cover Design, which shows Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" rendered in multiple, Modernist/Warholian silk-screen variations. A cult writer once upon a time, Cynthia Ozick is now firmly established as one of our finest writers. It took a very long time for the reading public as well as the critics to realize her greatness. By her own admission, it was a struggle to achieve the recognition she deserved and the belated fame is more "folly" than anything else. She is writing in three literary traditions simultaneously, all of them at the most profound level imaginable: The ancient Jewish, the modern European, and the Jamesian American. Hence, the dazzling allusiveness, poignant beauty, and sheer intensity of her work. Her prose style - imbricated, brachiate, and filigreed, to borrow three of her own favorite words - is a paradox: The rush of metaphors arrives at and realizes a work of luminous beauty. An absolute "must-have" title for Cynthia Ozick collectors. This title is a great collection. This is one of few copies of the First Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a beauty. Please note: This is an Import title, issued as a softcover original in the United Kingdom and a few Commonwealth nations only. None of the copies was commercially sold in the United States. There is NO American Edition. Even in the countries so priveleged, the book is now quite difficult to find in collectible condition. As such, the remaining fine copies available online command as much as $160. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for "Fame & Folly". Finalist for the National Book Award in 1997 for "The Puttermesser Papers". Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001 for "Quarrel & Quandary". Recipient of the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. One of the greatest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CYNTHIA OZICK TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0712674845.

1
0

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.