Click for full-size.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
by Carson McCullers
- Used
- very good
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good
- Seller
-
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940. Very Good/Very Good. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940. First Edition, First Printing, with 1940 to title and copyright pages. Octavo. 356 pp. First-issue dust jacket with original $2.50 price present and "Summer's Lease" blurb to rear flap. Tan buckram with dark red lettering.
Large triangular chip along inner edge of front flap with some loss to text of first paragraph; a few chips and shallow tears along edges and spine ends with cracking and creasing at and along spine; black adhesive staining and remnants along top and bottom edges on both recto and verso, with 123 lightly in pencil on verso over spine. Cloth darkened, with tape shadows at top and bottom edges of both boards and light mirroring of the jacket's black adhesive. Spine cocked. Topstain faded. Back hinge cracked ahead of final gathering with front hinge just starting at full title. Tape residue and abrasions to front and back endpapers from plate and or possibly pocket removal, with a partial illegible red stamp to back pastedown. Opens easily between gatherings but binding is holding. Pages a bit toned with a few stray smudges, but unmarked. Prior owner's bookplate on front free endpaper dated 1941, but no institutional markings though the tape remnants and endpaper abrasions track with institutional treatment. Still an overall externally presentable first edition of McCullers' debut novel and classic of Southern literature.
[Shapiro A1.1.a].
Large triangular chip along inner edge of front flap with some loss to text of first paragraph; a few chips and shallow tears along edges and spine ends with cracking and creasing at and along spine; black adhesive staining and remnants along top and bottom edges on both recto and verso, with 123 lightly in pencil on verso over spine. Cloth darkened, with tape shadows at top and bottom edges of both boards and light mirroring of the jacket's black adhesive. Spine cocked. Topstain faded. Back hinge cracked ahead of final gathering with front hinge just starting at full title. Tape residue and abrasions to front and back endpapers from plate and or possibly pocket removal, with a partial illegible red stamp to back pastedown. Opens easily between gatherings but binding is holding. Pages a bit toned with a few stray smudges, but unmarked. Prior owner's bookplate on front free endpaper dated 1941, but no institutional markings though the tape remnants and endpaper abrasions track with institutional treatment. Still an overall externally presentable first edition of McCullers' debut novel and classic of Southern literature.
[Shapiro A1.1.a].
Synopsis
Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the author’s first in her string of works that lift the voices of the outsiders. The debut novel tells the story of a deaf-mute man named John Singer, who lives in an unnamed mill town in Georgia in the late 1930s. Left alone after his close friend and roommate is sent away, Singer moves into a boarding house and soon becomes the confidant of four of the town’s mistfits. His new acquaintances include Mick Kelly, a spirited young girl from a poor family; Jake Blount, an alcoholic social reformer; Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, an idealistic black physician; and Biff Brannon, the childless owner of the local café that brought the group together. These five voices share a common cry of isolation, the novel’s principal theme. Thus, some understand the characters experiencing this shared isolation to be grotesque, a Southern Gothic literary term for elements — often exaggerated — in dissension of social and cultural formations. However, others argue that the work is far too rooted in realism to fit the aforementioned bill. Having quickly risen to the top of the bestseller lists in 1940, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was a literary sensation. Modern Library ranked the novel seventeenth on its list of the “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century. It was also included in TIME’s “100 Best Novels” (since 1923 to 2005). A film adaptation was made in 1968, starring Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, and Cicely Tyson. In March 2005, a stage adaptation premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia and began touring shortly thereafter, commissioned and produced by the Acting Company of New York City. And after being selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2004, Houghton Mifflin, McCullers's publisher throughout her life, rushed out 700,000 copies of a new paperback edition. As a result, the 64-year-old novel was the No. 1 bestseller for a brief time in May of that year.
Read More: Identifying first editions of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Capitol Hill Books, ABAA
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 10827
- Title
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- Author
- Carson McCullers
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin Company
- Place of Publication
- Boston
- Date Published
- 1940
Terms of Sale
Capitol Hill Books, ABAA
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.
About the Seller
Capitol Hill Books, ABAA
Biblio member since 2019
Washington, District of Columbia
About Capitol Hill Books, ABAA
Capitol Hill Books is a used bookstore in the Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington, DC. We have three floors of quality used books, first editions, and rare books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gatherings
- A term used in bookbinding, where a gathering of sheets is folded at the middle, then bound into the binding together. The...
- Cocked
- Refers to a state where the spine of a book is lightly "twisted" in such a way that the front and rear boards of a book do not...
- Blurb
- The blurb refers to the commentary that appears on the dust jacket flaps or the rear of the dustjacket. In the case of a...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Plate
- Full page illustration or photograph. Plates are printed separately from the text of the book, and bound in at production. I.e.,...
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Verso
- The page bound on the left side of a book, opposite to the recto page.
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Recto
- The page on the right side of a book, with the term Verso used to describe the page on the left side.
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Hinge
- The portion of the book closest to the spine that allows the book to be opened and closed.
- Buckram
- A plain weave fabric normally made from cotton or linen which is stiffened with starch or other chemicals to cover the book...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Cracked
- In reference to a hinge or a book's binding, means that the glue which holds the opposing leaves has allowed them to separate,...
Frequently asked questions
This Book’s Categories
May the Fourth Be With You!
As the Star Wars franchise continues to grow, change, and churn out money-making film after film now under the control of Disney, we can bet that the desire to own Star Wars collectibles will also continue to grow. Check out our gallery of goodies from a galaxy far, far away...
Storing books - laying down or standing up?
Don’t unwittingly damage your growing book collection! Learn about when to store books laying down vs standing up. Read About Safe Book Storage
