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Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. Flaubert’s Parrot. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985. Pp. 216. 17.1 x 10.3 cm. ISBN: 0070037485.
Following the critical success of Julian Barnes’s novel Flaubert’s Parrot, McGraw-Hill published a series of small-format paperbacks to promote his backlist. After releasing Flaubert’s Parrot in paperback (1985), McGraw-Hill issued Barnes’s second novel Before She Met Me (1986), followed by Metroland (1987).
Notes about this edition: Julian Barnes. Flaubert’s Parrot | Talking It Over. London: Quality Paperbacks Direct, 2000. Pp. 498. 19.7 x 12.6 cm.
Quality Paperbacks Direct issued this “omnibus” edition of Julian Barnes’s novels Flaubert’s Parrot and Talking It Over in 2000, the same year Jonathan Cape released Love, etc, Barnes’s sequel to Talking It Over. The cover replicates artwork for Talking It Over, as the book likely sought to capitalize on the sequel’s release.
Barnes’s paperback rights were managed by Picador at the time of publication, as QPD notes on the copyright page. The book’s table of contents lists Flaubert’s Parrot as beginning on page ‘vii’ and Talking It Over on page 231.
Notes on this Edition: Published by Jonathan Cape in 1984, Barnes’s third literary novel Flaubert’s Parrot was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. After being nominated for the Booker Prize, some copies of the first edition were issued with a red wrap-around band announcing the nomination.
Several errant dust jackets were produced that were slightly darker in tone. Some of these jackets were distributed with review copies, but the rest were pulped in favor of the corrected jacket. The darker toned jacket is featured below next to the corrected jacket to emphasize the tone differences.
Descriptive Bibliography: First edition – London: Jonathan Cape, 1984. £8.50. Print run: 3000.
Title Page: JULIAN BARNES | [double rule line] | Flaubert’s | Parrot | [Jonathan Cape device] | JONATHAN CAPE | THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE LONDON
Copyright Page: First published 1984 | Copyright © by Julian Barnes 1984 | Jonathan Cape Ltd, 30 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3EL | British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data | Barnes, Julian | Flaubert’s Parrot. | I. Title | 823’.914[F] PR6052.A6657 | ISBN 0-224-02222-9 | ‘Flaubert’s Parrot’ was first published | in the London Review of Books, | and ‘Emma Bovary’s Eyes’ first appeared, | in an edited form, in Granta. | Printed in Great Britain by | Ebenezer Baylis and Son Limited | The Trinity Press, Worcester and London
Collation: 21.5 x 13.7 cm. Pp. [1-10] 11-190 [191-192]. [1]: ‘Flaubert’s | Parrot’. [2]: ‘by the same author | METROLAND | BEFORE SHE MET ME’. [3]: title page. [4]: copyright page. [5]: ‘To Pat’. [6]: blank. [7]: epigraph. [8]: ‘Note | I am grateful to James Fenton and the Salamander Press for per- | mission to reprint the lines from ‘A German Requiem’ on page 115. | The translations in this book are by Geoffrey Braithwaite; though he | would have been lost without the impeccable example of Francis | Steegmuller. | J.B.’. [9]: [contents]. [10]: blank. 11-190: text. [191-192]: blank.
General description: Binding 22.2 x 14.5 cm. Green cloth boards, gold blocked on spine. White endpapers. White dust jacket lettered in black. Cover image ‘Félicité Sleeping with Parrot’ by David Hockney. Photograph of the author on back flap. A small number of copies were issued in a first-state dust jacket with a misprinted color illustration.
Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. Flaubert’s Parrot. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. Pp. 190 + [2]. 21 x 13.5 cm.
Uncorrected Proof of the first U.S. edition of Julian Barnes’s novel Flaubert’s Parrot published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1985. Covered in green wraps with black lettering.
Presented here are two versions of the Knopf proof. The first copy was the top proof on the cart of text blocks upon which the cover color was written. The cover has the initials “P.C.” for “Press Copy” and the inside text block is marked “Press Copy Truck” with the cover color indicated as “Spring Green (114)”. This particular copy was acquired by the press operator prior to forwarding the remaining proof copies to the publisher for distribution to reviewers.
The second copy of this proof contains the provisional publication date of “March 8, 1985” with the “8” hand-written by the publisher. Stapled to the inside cover are two sheets of promotional material. This proof represents the typical state in which a copy would be forwarded to reviewers for consideration.
Also note that on one of the promotional sheets, the publisher corrected an error in which the main character of Flaubert’s Parrot, Geoffrey Braithwaite, was listed as “Charles Braithwaite”, suggesting a temporary blurring of the main male characters in Barnes’s novel and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary [i.e. Charles Bovary].
Notes on this edition: In 1988, artist Charles Hobson created an limited edition artists’ book titled Flaubert & Louise: Letters & Impressions. The contents of the book include letters written by Gustave Flaubert to his lover Louise Colet. Also included are excerpts from Julian Barnes’s novel Flaubert’s Parrot in which he fictionalized Colet’s voice in a chapter titled, “Louise Colet’s Version”. Hobson merges Flaubert’s real letters with Barnes’s fictional text to create a sense of an exchange between the couple.
The item presented in the photos is a prospectus for the artists’ book prepared at the time of the publication of the work in 1988. 21.5 x 14 cm.
A copy of the original artists’ book currently sells for $3,000 on Hobson’s website. Chronicle Books also issued a spiral bound book by Hobson titled Paris Encounters that contains a section devoted to his artistic creation Flaubert & Louise. Charles Hobson writes about his creative process for this work in an exhibition catalog in 2002: http://www.charleshobson.com/Hobson_Catalog.pdf