THE SHAWL: A STORY AND NOVELLA

New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 70 pages. Landmark collection of the author's work. Two of the greatest stories of the 20th century. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl: A Story And A Novella". The novella-length story being "Rosa". Both are Holocaust narratives, her most excruciating work, as she delves into the madness that is also the profound wisdom of Rosa, her inconsolable protagonist. Few contemporary writers have explored the subject of madness and loneliness as well as personal - not just political/social - identity, which the author nevertheless views as inescapably linked with one's historical and ethnic - in Ozick's and her character Rosa's case, Jewish - roots. The horror and tenderness of these masterpieces are quite unusual in Ozick's largely ironic, even ludic body of work. 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. "Cats have nine lives, but we - we're less than cats so we got three. The life before, the life during, the life after. The life after is now". "Sometimes a little forgetting is necessary if you want to get something out of life" (Cynthia Ozick). An absolute "must-have" title for Cynthia Ozick collectors. This copy comes with "A Tribute To Marianne Moore" First Day of Issue that is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed and inscribed in black ink-pen by Cynthia Ozick. She wrote down that the great poet is "of Bryn Mawr College!". This title is a great collection. As far as we know, this is the only copy (with Signed FDI) of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. 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 writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CYNTHIA OZICK TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0394579763.