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Schiff, Stacy : Cleopatra: A Life: The Uncorrected Proof

Little, Brown & Company, New York City, NY, 2010

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 370 pages. Full-length biography on subject. Now considered a contemporary classic. Uncorrected Proof/Advance Reader's Edition (ARC). Precedes and should not be confused with the regular trade edition. Published in a small and limited one-time-only print run (of an estimated 500 copies) as a softcover original only for the exclusive use of the publisher and author. Each copy is manually numbered and dated (upon its release on August 21, 2010, three months before the official publication) by the publisher as such in pen-marker on the bottom page edges. The Uncorrected Proof has no ISBN of its own. It is now rare. The Uncorrected Proof is very beautifully produced: Regular-sized volume format. Glossy pictorial softcovers with large flaps, as issued. Text by Stacy Schiff. Sixteen-page archival illustrations. Printed on uncoated (for the text) and coated (for the illustrations) stock papers in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents, in its earliest-publication state and tiniest print run, Stacy Schiff's "Cleopatra: A Life". The single most beautifully written biography, such as it is possible, of the single most legendary - because elusive - female historical figure of the Ancient Era. Why a book on Cleopatra in the 21st century? According to Stacy Schiff, in order to remind us of an eternal moment in human history: "You have a moment in history when the entire world changes. The Roman Republic and the Hellenistic Age ends with her death and then thirty years later, Jesus Christ is born. You have this all-star cast: You have Mark Antony, Julius Caesar, Herod The Great, and Cleopatra herself. It doesn't get any better than this" (Stacy Schiff). "Exceptionally artful. Imaginative attunement with a subject, however, does not have to compromise a vigilant biographer's critical detachment, and Schiff's beautiful writing hums with that tension. It is an edifice of speculation and conjecture, like every Cleopatra ever written. But unlike nearly all of them, it is also a work of literature" (The New Yorker Magazine). An absolute "must-have" title for Stacy Schiff collectors. This copy of the Uncorrected Proof is very prominently and beautifully signed and dated in black pen on the title page by the author: "Stacy Schiff 3/16/11". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Laid-in is a pristine copy of the Souvenir Announcement of the event during which her signature was obtained. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed and dated copy of the Uncorrected Proof/Advance Reader's Edition (ARC) available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a beauty. Please note: Precedes and should NOT be confused with the regular trade edition. Published in a small and limited one-time-only print run (of an estimated 500 copies) as a softcover original only. Each copy is manually numbered and dated (upon its release on August 21, 2010, three months before the official publication) by the publisher as such in pen-marker on the bottom page edges. Schiff did not tour nationally to promote the book because she did not have to. By the time she made a few, sporadic appearances to sign copies, most were already subsequent printings. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for "Vera", the biography of Vladimir Nabokov's wife, in 2000. "Cleopatra: A Life" was selected as one of Ten Best Books of 2010 by The New York Times. One of the most brilliant American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER STACY SCHIFF TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

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