Stardust (Signed First Edition)

Gaiman, Neil

ISBN 10: 0380977281 / ISBN 13: 9780380977284

Published by William Morrow, 1999

About this Item

Stated First Edition/First Printing with the complete number line; A Fine book in a Fine dust jacket with only a gentle push to the spine ends and a previous owner's name to the front free paper, else as new and unread. SIGNED with a unique inscription ".A Little Dream of Once Upon a Time". A pristine copy of this Gaiman novel enhanced by the one of a kind inscription. Not remaindered, not price clipped, not ex-library; in archival protection.

Seller Inventory # 4318

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Stardust (Signed First Edition)
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0380977281
• ISBN 13: 9780380977284
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fantasy

About this title

Synopsis

Living in a Victorian countryside town overshadowed by a imposing stone barrier, Tristran is compelled to retrieve a fallen star for the woman he loves and crosses to the wondrous other side of the barrier, where he encounters dangerous rivals for the star. 80,000 first printing.

Review

The versatile Neil Gaiman is best known for scripting upmarket graphic novels, most famously the lengthy Sandman cycle. Stardust was a joint project with artist Charles Vess, a short novel of fairyland enriched by at least one sumptuous painting on every page. This edition contains only the (slightly rewritten) text, alas. Gaiman's story looks back to days before commercial genre fantasy, to Lord Dunsany's and Hope Mirrlees's visions of Faerie as a misty country which is at the same time temptingly close and "over the hills and far away". The simple tale is new but has a twice-told familiarity, crafted like a mosaic from many traditional elements. Hopelessly crossed in love, a boy of half-fairy parentage leaves his mundane Victorian- English village on a quest for a fallen star in the magical realm. The star proves to be an attractive woman with a hot temper, who plunges with our hero into adventures featuring witches, the lion and the unicorn, plotting elf-lords, ships that sail the sky, magical transformations, curses whose effects rebound, binding conditions with hidden loopholes, and all the rest. Stardust is by turns knowing, poetic, comic and grisly and exudes considerable charm. If only we had those full-colour Vess paintings too. --David Langford