Books

First edition, first printing, signed by the author on the half-title. Atwood's enduring work secured her place as one of the most prominent writers of the 20th century. It received the Arthur C. Clarke award in 1985 and has been adapted into a film (1990), an opera (2000), and a television series (2017). Atwood's choice to construct the setting of Gilead from real-life events has sustained the book's relevance across decades of sociopolitical change, finding new readers and fuelling academic debates. Explaining her writing process, the author later stated that "I made a rule for myself: I would not include anything that human beings had not already done in some other place or time, or for which the technology did not already exist. I did not wish to be accused of dark, twisted inventions, or of misrepresenting the human potential for deplorable behaviour". Octavo. Original red quarter boards, spine lettered in cream, cream board sides, red endpapers. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom black board folding box incorporating handmaid silhouette on front. Edges bumped, small mark to front cover and fore edge, upper corner of front free endpaper sometime clipped to remove ownership inscription; jacket unclipped, a little rubbing, shallow chip to foot of front flap fold: a very good copy in like jacket. "Margaret Atwood on How She Came to Write the Handmaid's Tale", Literary Hub, 25 April 2018.

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, first published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian state resembling a theonomy that has overthrown the United States government. The novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred, her life in this regime, and her role in society to produce children against her will.