New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Hardcover. Small 8vo. White paper over boards with red and silver spine lettering, pictorial dust jacket. 145pp, (4pp). Fine/fine. Tight and pristine -- truly right-off-the-shelf crisp -- first edition of this first-person fictional novella.

Synopsis

Jane Mendelsohn was born in New York City, July 4, 1965. She was graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale University in 1987, and attended Yale Law School for one year before beginning a career as a writer/journalist. In 1992, Ms. Mendelsohn spotted an article in The New York Times about the discovery of a piece of a plane believed to have been Amelia Earhart's. The article mentioned that Earhart traveled with a navigator, Fred Noonan, who was with her on her last flight. Intrigued by the dramatic possibilities of two people flying around the world together, crashing, and perhaps surviving, she began researching Earhart's life and disappearance. Shortly after, Ms. Mendelsohn began sketching out a book based on her findings. The first version was a much longer book, told entirely in the third person. "Once I finished it," Ms. Mendelsohn says, "I realized that I had only just figured out the story. Now that I knew what had happened, I had to tell it in Earhart's, and my, voice." The result is I Was Amelia Earhart . Harper's Bazaar hails I Was Amelia Earhart as "an immediately addicting book, as telegraphic as those of Margaret Duras, and as charged with longing....not to be missed." The New York Times writes, "Ms. Mendelsohn has chosen to use the bare-boned outlines of the aviator's life as an armature for a poetic meditation on freedom and love and flight. I Was Amelia Earhart , like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's General in His Labyrinth , invokes the spirit of a mythic personage, while standing on its own as a powerfully imagined work of fiction." I Was Amelia Earhart is Ms. Mendelsohn's first book and novel. Ms. Mendelsohn's reviews have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Village Voice, The Guardian, The London Review of Books , and Yale Review . She has worked as an assistant to the literary editor at The Village Voice and as a tutor at Yale University. At the moment, Ms. Mendelsohn is writing a horror film. She is also sketching out details for her next novel. Ms. Mendelsohn is married and lives in New York with her husband, filmmaker Nick Davis.

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Details

Bookseller: Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts, ABAA (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 48198
Title: I Was Amelia Earhart: A Novel
Author: MENDELSOHN, Jane
Format/Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Used
Quantity Available: 1
ISBN 10: 0679450548
ISBN 13: 9780679450542
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Place of Publication: New York
Date Published: 1996
Bookseller catalogs: Books; Modern Fiction; Aviation;

Terms of Sale

Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts, ABAA

Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts accepts most major credit cards and PayPal. Checks are welcome. Institutions will be accommodated as their procedures require. Every effort has been made to describe each book and any defects accurately. If an item proves unsatisfactory for any reason, it may be returned within seven days. We would appreciate a courtesy call if an item is being returned. Member ABAA, ILAB, MWABA, The Manuscript Society.

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About Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts, ABAA

Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts has been serving book lovers, collectors and institutions since 1991. Our inventory of quality out-of-print books spans 50 subjects, while the extensive autograph holdings have a decidedly historical bent, reflecting personages from every field of human endeavor.

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