An online collection of books and ephemera
Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. In die Sonne sehen | Staring at the Sun. Zürich: Haffmans Verlag, 1991. Pp. 269 [270] + [2]. 18.5 x 11.3 cm. Translated by Gertraude Krueger. ISBN: 3251001914. (German).
Cover image by Volker Kriegel. Kriegel’s official website features a photograph of him working on this particular cover.
Notes on this edition: Staring at the Sun. Toronto: Random House Canada, 1987. Pp. 200.
This Advance Review Copy is identical to the First Canadian Edition, except for the stamps to the inside cover and front endsheets. This particular edition is inscribed by Julian Barnes to Greg Gatenby, former Artistic Director of the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront in Toronto. Barnes’s inscription reads: “To Greg | (who didn’t even pay | money for this) | Julian Barnes | [line] | Toronto, April 1987”. Gatenby’s signature and date are also on the endsheet.
The book is stamped as a review copy, and a review notice is loosely inserted in to the book.
Notes on this edition: First Canadian edition – Toronto: Random House, 1987. $19.95.
Descriptive Bibliography:
Title Page: JULIAN BARNES | [multiple lines of alternating thickness arranged to suggest the image of a sunset] | STARING | AT THE SUN | [ruled lines of alternating thickness] | RANDOM HOUSE TORONTO | 1 9 [Random House device] 8 7
Copyright Page: Copyright © 1986 by Julian Barnes | All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright | Conventions. Published in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, | Toronto, and simultaneously in | the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. | Originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Limited, London. | Canadian Cataloging in Publication Data | Barnes, Julian. | Staring at the sun. | ISBN 0-394-22005-6 | I. Title. | PR6052.A66S7 1987 823’ .914 C86-094603-7 | Manufactured in the United States of America | FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
Collation: 21.2 x 14.4 cm. Untrimmed pages. Pp. [i-viii, 1-8] 9-65 [66-70] 71-137 [138-142] 143-197 [198-200] [Note: no even page numbers were printed]. [i]: blank. [ii]: ‘ALSO BY JULIAN BARNES | Metroland | Before She Met Me | Flaubert’s Parrot’. [iii]: ‘STARING AT THE SUN’. [iv]: blank. [v]: title page. [vi]: copyright page. [vii]: ‘to Pat’. [viii]: blank. [1]: ‘STARING AT THE SUN’. [2]: blank. [3-4]: text. [5]: ‘[multiple lines of alternating thickness arranged to suggest the image of a sunset] | ONE | You ask me what life is? It is like asking what a carrot | is. A carrot is a carrot, and nothing more is known. | –CHEKHOV TO OLGA KNIPPER, 20 April 1904 | [ruled lines of alternating thickness]’. [6]: blank. [7]-[66]: text. [67]: ‘[multiple lines of alternating thickness arranged to suggest the image of a sunset] | TWO | Three wise men—are you serious? | –GRAFFITO, c. 1984 | [ruled lines of alternating thickness]’. [68]: blank. [69]-137: text. [138]: blank. [139]: ‘[multiple lines of alternating thickness arranged to suggest the image of a sunset] | THREE | immortality is no learned question. | –KIERKEGAARD | [ruled lines of alternating thickness]’. [140]: blank. [141]-197: text. [198]: blank. [199]: ‘A NOTE ON THE TYPE | The text of this book was set in a digitized version of Bembo, a | well-known Monotype face. Named for Pietro Bembo, the cele- | brated Renaissance writer and humanist scholar who was made a | cardinal and served as secretary to Pope Leo X, the original cut- | ting of Bembo was made by Francesco Griffo of Bologna only a | few years after Columbus discovered America. | Sturdy, well balanced, and finely proportioned, Bembo is a | face of rare beauty, extremely legible in all of its sizes. | Composed by Creative Graphics, Inc. | Printed and bound by Fairfield Graphics, | Fairfield, Pennsylvania. | Book design by Marysarah Quinn’. [200]: blank.
General description: Binding 22 x 15 cm. White boards, light purple quarter binding gold blocked on spine. White endpapers. White dust jacket lettered in light purple (title), blue (author), and black (quotes on lower panel). Multi-colored cover illustration by Havier Romero. Photograph of the author by Nancy Crampton located on back flap. Appears nearly identical to the First American edition, except for Random House markings to jacket spine and back flap. No price to front flap.
Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. Staring at the Sun. London: Picador, 1987. Pp. 195 + [7]. 19.6 x 12.9 cm. ISBN: 0330299301.
Published by Picador (Pan Books) in association with Jonathan Cape. Cover design by Trickett & Webb Limited. Cover price listed at £3.50, but this copy has a bookstore sticker from “Waterstone’s” listing the price as £4.03.
Below is a second printing of the Picador edition:
Notes on this edition: Granta: Best of Young British Novelists, issue 7 (Granta, 1983). ISSN: 0017-3231; ISBN: 0140068333. Edited by Bill Buford and distributed by Penguin Books.
First appearance of Julian Barnes’s story “Emma Bovary’s Eyes” which later appeared as a chapter in his novel Flaubert’s Parrot. The Granta version contains some textual differences from the finished novel and appears on pages 59-67.
Other authors featured in this collection include: Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Ursula Bentley, William Boyd, Buchi Emecheta, Maggie Gee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alan Judd, Adam Mars-Jones, Ian McEwan, Shiva Naipaul, Philip Norman, Christopher Priest, Salman Rushdie, Lisa de Terán, Clive Sinclair, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, A. N. Wilson.