Description
Cold Mountain: A Novel by Charles Frazier (1997, hardcover, mint). Frazier drew on seven years of research and family oral history, basing Inman on his real great-great-uncle William Pinkney Inman, a genuine Confederate deserter. The result is a richly textured, linguistically gorgeous novel steeped in the natural history, folk culture, and moral landscape of nineteenth-century Appalachia. One of the most celebrated American novels of the past thirty years, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain tells the story of Inman, a Confederate soldier sorely wounded at the Battle of Petersburg, who walks away from the war and begins a long, harrowing journey home through the disintegrating South toward Cold Mountain, North Carolina, and the woman he loves, Ada Monroe. Inman's odyssey brings him into life-or-death contact with slaves, marauders, bounty hunters, hermits, and healers, each encounter a meditation on survival and human nature. Woven alongside his journey is Ada's story: left alone on her father's derelict farm, she must learn to survive with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. Frazier drew on seven years of research and family oral history, basing Inman on his real great-great-uncle William Pinkney Inman, a genuine Confederate deserter. The result is a richly textured, linguistically gorgeous novel steeped in the natural history, folk culture, and moral landscape of nineteenth-century Appalachia. Published in a modest first printing of 25,000 copies, it went on to sell over one million copies in hardcover alone, spent sixty-one weeks atop the New York Times best-seller list, won the National Book Award, and was adapted into a 2003 Academy Award-winning film directed by Anthony Minghella. This Atlantic Monthly Press hardcover first edition, complete with illustrated map endpapers of the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains, is the definitive collector's form of a landmark work. Keys: Civil , War , Confederate , soldier , Appalachia , North , Carolina , Blue , Ridge , Mountains , deserter , historical , fiction , literary , National , Book , Award , Atlantic , Monthly , Press , 1997 , first , edition , hardcover , dust , jacket , map , endpapers , Southern , literature , love , survival , war , journey , film , adaptation. Charles Frazier was born November 4, 1950 in Asheville, North Carolina, and grew up in the mountain towns of Andrews and Franklin. He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina, Appalachian State University, and the University of South Carolina. Cold Mountain, his debut novel published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1997, spent sixty-one weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and won the National Book Award for Fiction. He lives on a farm near Raleigh, North Carolina.