A Fine and Private Place
Encyclopedia
A Fine and Private Place is a fantasy
novel written by Peter S. Beagle
, the first of his major fantasies. It was first published in hardcover
by Viking Press
on May 23, 1960, followed by a trade paperback from Delta the same year. Frederick Muller Ltd. published the first United Kingdom hardcover in 1960, and a regular paperback followed from Corgi in 1963. The first U.S. mass market paperback publication was by Ballantine Books
in 1969. The Ballantine edition was reprinted numerous times through 1988. More recently it has appeared in trade paperback editions from Souvenir Press (1997), Roc
(1999), and Tachyon Publications
(2007). The work has also appeared with other works by Beagle in the omnibus collections The Fantasy Worlds of Peter S. Beagle (1978) and The Last Unicorn / A Fine and Private Place (1991). It has also been translated into Japanese
, German
, Russian
, Czech
, Hungarian
, Portuguese
, Korean
, Spanish
, Italian
, and Romanian
.
's "To His Coy Mistress
": "The grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace." The setting, accordingly, is the fictional Yorkchester Cemetery, where one Jonathan Rebeck, a homeless and bankrupt pharmacist who has dropped out of society, has been living, illegally and unobtrusively, for nearly two decades. He is maintained by a raven who, like the legendary ravens who fed Elijah in the wilderness, supplies him with food in the form of sandwiches thieved from nearby businesses.
The protagonist exhibits the peculiar ability to converse with both the raven and the shades of the dead who haunt the cemetery. Beagle portrays ghosts as being bound to the vicinity of their burial, with their minds and memories slowly fading away as their mortal forms return to the dust. As the plot proceeds, Rebeck befriends two recently arrived spirits, those of teacher Michael Morgan, who died either from poisoning by his wife or suicide (he can't remember which), and of bookshop clerk Laura Durand, who was killed by a truck. The two ghosts fall in love, and each pledge themselves to each other "for as long as I can remember love."
Rebeck soon finds himself subject to another's attentions as well, in the form of a widow, Mrs. Klapper, who discovers him while visiting her husband's mausoleum. The quiet existence of this unlikely quintet is diverted by philosophical conversation and the poisoning trial of Morgan's wife, word of which is regularly provided by the raven from the local newspapers.
After she is ultimately found innocent and her husband's death ruled suicide, Morgan faces separation from Laura when his body is removed to unhallowed ground. Rebeck, under the encouragement of Mrs. Klapper, is driven to find a way to reunite them, and finally takes leave of his unusual abode.
and Edmund Fuller
in The New York Times (May 23, 1960, and June 5, 1960, respectively), Tom Morrow in the Chicago Daily Tribune (June 5, 1960), and George W. Feinstein in The Los Angeles Times (August 7, 1960).
Prescott called it "a first novel of considerable charm and much promise," noting its originality, "combination of wistful melancholy and tart humor," and "smooth, precise, graceful prose, bright with wit and sparkling with imaginative phrases." Less positively, he felt it "doesn't go far enough," "seems too slight to support so many pages," and had "too many repetitions, too many stretches where Mr. Beagle's fancy falters."
Fuller characterized the book as "a striking debut on several counts," possessed of "wit, charm and individuality–with a sense of style notable in a first novel." He disliked what he saw as a tendencies to "occasional strident, inappropriate, irrelevant vulgarism" and sentimentality, and viewed the portrayed "philosophical concept of death [as] shallow." Nonetheless, he concluded Beagle was an author to watch.
Morrow, whose review called the novel "a droll fantasy" in its title, ironically referred to the novel as "a work-a-day little book–nothing unusual," before going on to illustrate all the unusual things about it. He devoted his column largely to plot summary.
Feinstein was lukewarm in his praise, stating that "[b]ased on a mildly amusing situation and fortified by mildly amusing dialogue, this fantasy suffers from distention."
Galaxy
reviewer Floyd C, Gale praised the novel as "tender, funny, and wise, about as different (and good) as a 'ghost' story can be." Reviewing a mid-1970's reissue, Richard A. Lupoff
described it as "a marvelous fantasy. . . . funny, gentle, tender, and profound."
The book was also reviewed by Gahan Wilson
in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1969, Spider Robinson
, also in Galaxy, June 1977, Darrell Schweitzer
in Science Fiction Review, February 1978, and Charles de Lint
in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 2007.
's request.
IDW Publishing
has announced that it will publish a comic book adaptation of the novel in 2012, with a script by Peter S. Beagle
's own chosen adapter, Peter B. Gillis
.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novel written by Peter S. Beagle
Peter S. Beagle
Peter Soyer Beagle is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. His most notable works include the novels The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place and Tamsin, and the award-winning story "Two Hearts".-Career:Beagle won early recognition from The Scholastic Art &...
, the first of his major fantasies. It was first published in hardcover
Hardcover
A hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
by Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
on May 23, 1960, followed by a trade paperback from Delta the same year. Frederick Muller Ltd. published the first United Kingdom hardcover in 1960, and a regular paperback followed from Corgi in 1963. The first U.S. mass market paperback publication was by Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
in 1969. The Ballantine edition was reprinted numerous times through 1988. More recently it has appeared in trade paperback editions from Souvenir Press (1997), Roc
Roc Books
Roc Books is a fantasy imprint of Penguin Group, as part of their New American Library. The imprint was launched in April 1990 after Penguin Chairman, Peter Mayer, asked John Silbersack, the editor in chief of New American Library's science fiction program, to launch a new imprint that would draw...
(1999), and Tachyon Publications
Tachyon Publications
Tachyon Publications is an independent press specializing in science fiction and fantasy books. Founded in San Francisco in 1995 by Jacob Weisman, Tachyon books have tended toward high-end literary works, short story collections, and anthologies....
(2007). The work has also appeared with other works by Beagle in the omnibus collections The Fantasy Worlds of Peter S. Beagle (1978) and The Last Unicorn / A Fine and Private Place (1991). It has also been translated into Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
.
Plot
The book takes its title from a verse from Andrew MarvellAndrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman . As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert...
's "To His Coy Mistress
To His Coy Mistress
To His Coy Mistress is a metaphysical poem written by the British author and statesman Andrew Marvell either during or just before the Interregnum....
": "The grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace." The setting, accordingly, is the fictional Yorkchester Cemetery, where one Jonathan Rebeck, a homeless and bankrupt pharmacist who has dropped out of society, has been living, illegally and unobtrusively, for nearly two decades. He is maintained by a raven who, like the legendary ravens who fed Elijah in the wilderness, supplies him with food in the form of sandwiches thieved from nearby businesses.
The protagonist exhibits the peculiar ability to converse with both the raven and the shades of the dead who haunt the cemetery. Beagle portrays ghosts as being bound to the vicinity of their burial, with their minds and memories slowly fading away as their mortal forms return to the dust. As the plot proceeds, Rebeck befriends two recently arrived spirits, those of teacher Michael Morgan, who died either from poisoning by his wife or suicide (he can't remember which), and of bookshop clerk Laura Durand, who was killed by a truck. The two ghosts fall in love, and each pledge themselves to each other "for as long as I can remember love."
Rebeck soon finds himself subject to another's attentions as well, in the form of a widow, Mrs. Klapper, who discovers him while visiting her husband's mausoleum. The quiet existence of this unlikely quintet is diverted by philosophical conversation and the poisoning trial of Morgan's wife, word of which is regularly provided by the raven from the local newspapers.
After she is ultimately found innocent and her husband's death ruled suicide, Morgan faces separation from Laura when his body is removed to unhallowed ground. Rebeck, under the encouragement of Mrs. Klapper, is driven to find a way to reunite them, and finally takes leave of his unusual abode.
Reception
The novel received favorable reviews, notably by Orville PrescottOrville Prescott
Orville Prescott was the main book reviewer for the New York Times for 24 years.Born in Cleveland, Prescott graduated from Williams College in 1930...
and Edmund Fuller
Edmund Fuller
Edmund Fuller was a historian, literary critic, and master at Kent School. He was also involved in the some of the 1950s and 1960s science and religion scholarship, bringing him into contact with William G. Pollard...
in The New York Times (May 23, 1960, and June 5, 1960, respectively), Tom Morrow in the Chicago Daily Tribune (June 5, 1960), and George W. Feinstein in The Los Angeles Times (August 7, 1960).
Prescott called it "a first novel of considerable charm and much promise," noting its originality, "combination of wistful melancholy and tart humor," and "smooth, precise, graceful prose, bright with wit and sparkling with imaginative phrases." Less positively, he felt it "doesn't go far enough," "seems too slight to support so many pages," and had "too many repetitions, too many stretches where Mr. Beagle's fancy falters."
Fuller characterized the book as "a striking debut on several counts," possessed of "wit, charm and individuality–with a sense of style notable in a first novel." He disliked what he saw as a tendencies to "occasional strident, inappropriate, irrelevant vulgarism" and sentimentality, and viewed the portrayed "philosophical concept of death [as] shallow." Nonetheless, he concluded Beagle was an author to watch.
Morrow, whose review called the novel "a droll fantasy" in its title, ironically referred to the novel as "a work-a-day little book–nothing unusual," before going on to illustrate all the unusual things about it. He devoted his column largely to plot summary.
Feinstein was lukewarm in his praise, stating that "[b]ased on a mildly amusing situation and fortified by mildly amusing dialogue, this fantasy suffers from distention."
Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
reviewer Floyd C, Gale praised the novel as "tender, funny, and wise, about as different (and good) as a 'ghost' story can be." Reviewing a mid-1970's reissue, Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
described it as "a marvelous fantasy. . . . funny, gentle, tender, and profound."
The book was also reviewed by Gahan Wilson
Gahan Wilson
Gahan Wilson is an American author, cartoonist and illustrator known for his cartoons depicting horror-fantasy situations...
in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1969, Spider Robinson
Spider Robinson
Spider Robinson is an American-born Canadian Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction author.- Biography :Born in the Bronx, New York City, Robinson attended Catholic high school, spending his junior year in a seminary, followed by two years in a Catholic college, and five years at the State...
, also in Galaxy, June 1977, Darrell Schweitzer
Darrell Schweitzer
Darrell Charles Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy...
in Science Fiction Review, February 1978, and Charles de Lint
Charles de Lint
Charles de Lint is a Canadian fantasy author and folk musician. He is also the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction....
in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 2007.
In other media
The novel was adapted into A Fine and Private Place: a Musical Fantasy with book and lyrics by Erik Haagensen and music by Richard Isen (Clearsong Records, 2004). This version has been withdrawn from further circulation or performance at Peter S. BeaglePeter S. Beagle
Peter Soyer Beagle is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. His most notable works include the novels The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place and Tamsin, and the award-winning story "Two Hearts".-Career:Beagle won early recognition from The Scholastic Art &...
's request.
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
has announced that it will publish a comic book adaptation of the novel in 2012, with a script by Peter S. Beagle
Peter S. Beagle
Peter Soyer Beagle is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. His most notable works include the novels The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place and Tamsin, and the award-winning story "Two Hearts".-Career:Beagle won early recognition from The Scholastic Art &...
's own chosen adapter, Peter B. Gillis
Peter B. Gillis
Peter B. Gillis is an American comic book writer best known for his work at Marvel Comics and First Comics in the mid-1980s, including the series Strikeforce: Morituri, and the digitally drawn comic series Shatter.-Biography:...
.