It seemed the reviewer was almost ashamed that he liked it as much as he did. Bravo to Showalter for bringing Amber back! And here's a review of Forever Amber from the October 21, 1944 edition of The New Yorker. And finally, since reading Defoe's Moll Flanders in college, I've thought of Amber as Moll's much more interesting fictional sister. Amber still tops my list of favorite romantic novels, though she probably would be better classified as historical fiction. And to this day, I can't think of the bubonic plague without thinking of Amber - Winsor did an amazing job of making those historical details feel real and significant. (Isn't that a horrible practice? How could a library violate books like that?) When I finished Amber, I felt I'd finally found what I was looking for and haven't read a romance novel since. And what prompted such an intense response? Well, I was driven back to the summer I was thirteen and tore through romance novels at the rate of one a day - until I found Forever Amber. I found her at a library booksale and her cover had been torn off so she couldn't be resold.

(Note to self: must see if KQED posted the audio clip of this interview on their website).

I wish Elaine Showalter hadn't mentioned Forever Amber in the interview about her new book, A Jury of Her Peers, that aired on NPR in the Bay Area a few days ago, because the minute she did, I was so distracted by my memories of this book that I didn't hear another word of her interview. $750.00.A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx Very Good (little wear covers contents clean & tight) some edgewear (small chips & tears price-clipped) d/j. It is my experience that this is the more common dust jacket (the other is entirely printed in blue) but, if it is the earliest one, I do not know. This dust jacket, which is uncommonly fragile, is entirely printed in black- both text & the photograph on the rear cover. I have noted two variant dust jackets but I have little information to offer about them. Signed by Winsor on verso of the front endpaper. novel of the 1940s, selling more than 100,000 copies in its first week of release and eventually selling more than three million. Despite its ban, 'Forever Amber' was the best-selling U.S. Condemned for blatant sexual references, 14 states banned the book as pornography. Adapted into a successful 1948 movie, the 972-page novel was edited down to one-fifth of the manuscript Winsor originally presented to the publisher. First Edition, first printing (so stated). 8vo., green cloth in dust jacket 972 pages.

Forever amber by kathleen winsor 1944