Birthday Book: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, on sale

ON SALE: Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1st ed, 1st printing, 1986). Famed tale of the United States’ evolution into a monotheocracy whose people made the Puritans seem like an average night at Studio 54. Winner of the first Arthur C. Clarke Prize for Science Fiction, it’s a dystopian favorite! Hardcover, unclipped dust jacket, very good condition. HBB price: $79.95. $40

Today is Margaret Atwood’s 76th birthday. We’re celebrating the eminent Canadian writer’s natal event with a sale on what is perhaps her best-known- and, to critics, most anti-American, work. The Handmaid’s Tale is a singularly surgical imagining of a future crafted by the U.S. religious right, and so has singular relevance to current events in the world.

The daughter of an entomologist, Atwood grew up in the Canadian back country, home-schooled until she was eight. When her family moved into town, it was a shock: “I was now faced with real life, in the form of other little girls — their prudery and snobbery, their Byzantine social life based on whispering and vicious gossip, and an inability to pick up earthworms without wriggling all over and making mewing noises like a kitten.”

She was a sci fi addict from childhood, and her novels bear the influence of Bradbury and Orwell; she studied under Northrop Frye in college, then got an AM at Radcliffe and and ABD doctorate. She taught at a number of college through 1972; and found getting published a rocky road. The Writer’s Almanac says,

At the age of 25, she wrote her first novel, and submitted it to M&S, the preeminent Canadian publishing house. It was rejected, but Atwood was undaunted, and submitted her second novel there too. They were interested, but the correspondence fizzled out and she didn’t hear anything for a couple of years. In the meantime, she published a handful of poems, then a poetry collection. With a more solid reputation, she called M&S to ask if she could have her manuscript back, and they realized that they had accepted it for publication, then lost it. The chief editor took her out to lunch and admitted that although he hadn’t read her book, he had liked what Atwood had to say in a recent article he read about her, and he was planning to publish her novel immediately. The Edible Woman was published in 1969. Atwood had her first-ever book signing in the men’s underwear department of the Hudson’s Bay Company store in Edmonton. She sold two copies.

But Atwood kept at it, and developed a solid following as a poet as she honed her skill as a novelist. By 1987- when Henry Bemis Books’ featured novel came out, she was solidly ranked in among the best of Canadian writers.

Author of 14 novels, 15 collections of poetry, 18 collections of short stories, a dozen nonfiction titles, children’s books, and screenplays, Atwood continues to break ground: her most recent book, written in 2014, is deposited with the Future Library Project, and will be published in 2114. She has also made a name in technology: disliking author tours, she invented the LongPen, which allows her to “sign” books in stores while remaining at home. She holds a number of patents on the technology and heads a company manufacturing the devices.

Atwood has won most of the glittering gongs of literature; schools ranging from Oxford to the Royal Canadian Military College have conferred honorary degrees upon her.  A noted feminist, Atwood regularly makes headlines wading into political issues; her outspokenness, and contributions to what Canadian-ness is, have made her a revered figure in her homeland.

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Henry Bemis Books is one man’s attempt to bring more diversity and quality to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg market of devoted readers starved for choices. Our website is at www.henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com. For more information about any listed book, or more photos, please contact Lindsay at henrybemisbookseller@gmail.com. Henry Bemis Books is also happy to entertain reasonable offers on items in inventory. Shipping is always free; local buyers are welcome to drop by and pick up their purchases at our location off Peachtree Road in Northwest Charlotte if they like. #RareBooks #HenryBemisBooks #MargaretAtwood #TheHandmaidsTale