A stunning special edition hardcover of Carol Shields's award-winning and critically acclaimed literary mystery, first published in 1987. Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband hacks her to pieces. Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence--her notebook, the first draft of ...
Read More
A stunning special edition hardcover of Carol Shields's award-winning and critically acclaimed literary mystery, first published in 1987. Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband hacks her to pieces. Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence--her notebook, the first draft of her work, even her photograph--gradually vanish as the characters in this engrossing novel become caught up in their own concepts of who Mary Swann was.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 0679307710. Some edgewear to book & DJ; This is a reprint of the 1987 novel from Stoddart Publishing. DJ in protective Mylar sleeve, unclipped.; 8vo 8"-9" tall; 397 pages; Although best known for The Stone Diaries, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Governor General's Award, Carol Shields has anointed Swann as her favourite offspring. Swann, a literary mystery that won the Arthur Ellis Award for best Canadian mystery, is among Shields's most eccentric works. It revolves around the papers of a fictional Canadian poet named Mary Swann, the stifled, uneducated, and almost friendless wife of a violent, poverty-stricken farmer. Just before her murder at the hands of her husband, Swann had delivered a paper bag containing her scraps of poetry to Frederic Cruzzi, the editor of a Kingston small press. Swann's book is initially forgotten, until Sarah Maloney, a young American feminist academic, discovers it. The novel itself begins after Swann has gained a small but growing reputation as a sort of northern Emily Dickinson, as her various readers prepare for an academic symposium in her honour. The bulk of Swann is divided into four sections, one devoted to each of the novel's main characters, all of whom are guilty of distorting or even destroying Swann's work and character to suit their own purposes. Along with Sarah and Frederic, the reader meets Morton Jimroy, Swann's rather pathetic and repellent biographer, and Rose Hindmarch, the middle-aged spinster who was Swann's only lasting human contact outside of her marriage. Swann is, in a sense, a writer's revenge novel, gently satirizing everyone who lives through the literary establishment, from academics to publishers, rare book collectors, and even common readers.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good+ in Very Good+, Not Price Clipped jacket. Book Complete number line from 1 to 10; minor wear; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition; dust jacket is protected by a mylar cover; an earlier edition of this book was published by Stoddart Publishing in 1987.
