Synopses & Reviews
For nineteen years, Jonathan Rebeck has hidden from the world within the confines of the Bronxs Yorkchester Cemetery, making an abandoned mausoleum his secret home. He speaks with the newly dead as they pass from life to wherever spirits finally go, providing them with comfort, an understanding ear, and even the occasional game of chess.
But Mr. Rebecks reclusive life is soon to be disrupted. An impossible love has blossomed between two ghosts at Yorkchester Cemetery, and Rebeck finds himself drawn to a living woman. Helped along by a cynical raven and a mysterious security guard, these four souls must learn the true difference between life and death and make choices that really are forever.
Told with an elegiac wisdom, Peter S. Beagles first novel is a timeless work of fantasy, imbued with hope and wonder. This updated edition contains the authors final revisions and stands as the definitive version of an enduring modern classic.
Review
"One of literature's most beautiful works about ghostly times and places . . . told with wit, charm, and a sense of individuality." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Beagle has been compared, not unreasonably, with Lewis Carroll and J. R. R. Tolkein, but he stands squarely and triumphantly on his own feet." The Saturday Review
Review
"A sweet, sad, and smart novel about life, death and love . . . a book that has endured for a reason." The Agony Column
Review
"Just as wonderful as I remembered it to be: beautifully written, the characters warmly drawn." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
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"I can't think of a better book to buy for someone you love this holiday season." Omnivoracious.com
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"Such compassion and grace that [the book] ends up far more absorbing and moving than most novels." SF Reviews.net
Review
"One of literature's most beautiful works about ghostly times and places . . . told with wit, charm, and a sense of individuality." The New York Times Book Review"Beagle has been compared, not unreasonably, with Lewis Carroll and J. R. R. Tolkein, but he stands squarely and triumphantly on his own feet." The Saturday Review"A sweet, sad, and smart novel about life, death and love . . . a book that has endured for a reason." The Agony Column
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"One of the great fantasy novels of all time." ICCFA Magazine (International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association)
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"I can't think of a better book to buy for someone you love this holiday season."
—Omnivoracious.com
One of literatures most beautiful works about ghostly times and places...told with wit, charm, and a sense of individuality.”
New York Times Book Review
A Fine and Private Place is just as wonderful as I remembered it to be: beautifully written, the characters warmly drawn, the pages filled with conversations that run the gamut of the human condition.... Its a great book in a lovely affordable package.”
Fantasy and Science Fiction
Both sepulchral and oddly appealing.... [Beagles] ectoplasmic fable has a distinct mossy charm.”
TIME Magazine
Delightful!”
San Francisco Chronicle
A sweet, sad, and smart novel about life, death and love...a book that has endured for a reason.”
The Agony Column
A wonderful work of literature...a gem of a novel.”
BookLoons
Over a cold beverage and a hot bowl of chili, Peter Beagle recently told me how he came to write A Fine and Private Place. He was just nineteen years old at the time, the length of time that Mr. Rebeck spent in that cemetery. He was working as a counselor at a boys summer camp. Once the campers were settled for the night there wasnt much for the counselors to do. Those who had sweethearts at the girls camp across the lake would borrow canoes and paddle across to see them. Peter had no such luck, he told me, so he warmed up his rattly little portable typewriter, cracked open a ream of paper, and starting writing a book. We are all incredibly lucky that Peter had no girlfriend that summer.”
Dick Lupoff, SF Site
An amazing read.... If fantastically developed characters trapped between love and death appeal to you, this is a nearly perfect book.”
Paperblog
Synopsis
Conversing in a mausoleum with the dead, an eccentric recluse is tugged back into the world by a pair of ghostly lovers bearing an extraordinary giftthe final chance for his own happiness. When challenged by a faithless wife and aided by a talking raven, the lives of the living and the dead may be renewed by courage and passion, but only if not belatedly. Told with an elegiac wisdom, this delightful tale of magic and otherworldly love is a timeless work of fantasy imbued with hope and wonder. After multiple printings since 1960, this newest edition will contain the author's recent revisions and will stand as the definitive version of an ageless classic.
About the Author
Peter S. Beagle is the best-selling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication in 1968. His other novels include A Fine and Private Place, The Innkeepers Song, and Tamsin. His short fiction has been collected in four volumes by Tachyon Publications, including The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Sleight of Hand. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de lImaginaire awards as well as the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.