Skip to content

No image available
No image available

The Graduate Hardcover - 1963

by Charles Webb

  • Used
  • very good
  • Hardcover

Description

Penguin Publishing Group, 1963. Hardcover. Very Good. Disclaimer:Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Used - Very Good
NZ$36.17
FREE Shipping to USA Standard delivery: 4 to 8 days
More Shipping Options
Ships from ThriftBooks (Washington, United States)

About ThriftBooks Washington, United States

Biblio member since 2018
Seller rating: This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

From the largest selection of used titles, we put quality, affordable books into the hands of readers

Terms of Sale: 30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.

Browse books from ThriftBooks

Details

  • Title The Graduate
  • Author Charles Webb
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition F
  • Condition Used - Very Good
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Publishing Group, New York
  • Date 1963
  • Bookseller's Inventory # G0453000029I4N01
  • ISBN 9780453000024 / 0453000029
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Summary

Charles Webb's The Graduate, published in 1963, was a success for the young American writer, a sly and provocative first novel that is often forgotten in the shadow of Mike Nichols' sensational 1967 film and, more recently, an attention-grabbing stage adaptation in London with Kathleen Turner, then Jerry Hall as Mrs. Robinson. Among other things, Webb's novel is a book of its time, written when young Americans were beginning to question, for the first time, the materialistic values that the postwar culture had taught them. Its hero is worldly yet naive, but that won't last for long.The novel dramatizes the post-graduate blues of Benjamin Braddock, an appealing young man of great promise who would seem to have everything going for him. Returning to his parents' home after graduation to ponder his future in the real world, he is depressed. The only thing that rallies him is the attention of Mrs. Robinson, the bored but attractive wife of his father's law partner. Mrs. Robinson makes a play for Benjamin, and he responds. Their affair is far from passionate but it is intense. It continues until Benjamin rediscovers the Robinsons' beautiful daughter Elaine. He falls in love with her but Mrs. Robinson, in a jealous rage, destroys the relationship by telling her daughter of her affair with Benjamin. He is undeterred, following Elaine and forcing her to acknowledge him even as she prepares to marry someone else. For the first time, it seems, Benjamin knows what he wants, and he pursues her right to the altar.The Graduate, for all its crackling humor and addled romance, is also a scathing look at how vacuous and materialistic middle-class American life had become in the middle of the 20th century. What Benjamin does not want to be, it seems, is what is all around him -- his parents, their friends, their things, their values. He is a fascinating character, an attractive young man who seems to be unconnected to his own generation, a carefully tended boy who wants to become a man but does not know how. The wry insight of Webb's The Graduate makes Benjamin Braddock an archetype for a whole generation, a latter-day Holden Caulfield. The Chicago Tribune hailed Webb as "a highly gifted and accomplished writer," and Saturday Review wrote that The Graduate "moves with the speed and drive of a runaway locomotive."