The Beginning of Joyce Carol Oates’s Gothic Saga
Joyce Carol Oates, Bellefleur. New York: A Henry Robins Book. E.P. Dutton, 1980. Hardcover in illustrated dust-jacket, 558 pp. First edition, fourth printing.
A very good copy in a very good + DJ. Some foxing on the French title and title pages and edges. Firm book block. Clean inside. No writing or markings on pages.
A great example of late 20th century Gothic Fiction
Bellefleur (1980) is the first novel in Joyce Carol Oates’s five-part Gothic Saga. Set in a decaying mansion in a region not unlike the Adirondack Mountains, the book follows several generations of the Bellefleur family, whose lives are shaped by violence, ambition, and strange supernatural occurrences. With shifting timelines and a large cast of characters, Oates draws on 19th-century Gothic traditions while exploring themes of inheritance, identity, and historical memory. Bellefleur blends the uncanny with the everyday, setting the tone for the novels that follow in the series: A Bloodsmoor Romance, Mysteries of Winterthurn, My Heart Laid Bare, and The Accursed.