ZAFON, Carlos Ruiz The Shadow of the Wind

ONE OF 1000 COPIES SIGNED BY ZAFON

8vo., publisher’s highly decorative boards reproducing a worn antiquarian book; lettered in black and red to upper cover; and in white/yellow to spine with publisher’s device to foot; map endpapers showing the centre of Barcelona; pp. [viii], 403, [vii]; containing pp. [xvi] pages of sepia photographs from around the city; a fine copy, contained in the matching slipcase (also fine).

Limited edition, published one year after the first, and with the addition of photographs. One of 1000 copies, signed by the author in gold pen to a special tipped-in page. This copy no. 399. 

“I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time…”

Thus begins the exquisite opening lines of Zafon’s masterpiece, The Shadow of the Wind, the first and most famous in his ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’ series. 

Zafon’s first novel, The Prince of Mist was published in 1993, and appeared in English in 2010. A series of novels for young adults followed, before, in 2001, La sombra del viento [The Shadow of the Wind] was first released to the world. Inspired by such writers as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Leo Tolstoy and Miguel de Cervantes - the latter of whom it is said in Spain is Zafon’s only competitor in terms of literary impact - the English edition benefits from the particularly poetic translation by Lucia Graves (daughter of Robert Graves). The plot traces the life of Daniel Sempere Martin and his family of antiquarian booksellers as they encounter cemeteries of forgotten books, mysterious writers with scarred pasts, ghosts lurking in the shadows, unsolved mysteries involving fires and murder, and fated love. Championed by such writers as Stephen King, who wrote that it “is the real deal, a novel full of cheesy splendour and creaking trapdoors, a novel where even the subplots have subplots”, Shadow went on to sell over 15 million copies worldwide. El juego del ángel [The Angel's Game]; El prisionero del cielo [The Prisoner of Heaven]; and El laberinto de los espíritus [The Labyrinth of Spirits] followed in quick succession, with the stories in each of the books designed to be read in any order, encompassing overlapping characters and story arcs built across generations bringing depth and further intrigue as each was published.  

When Zafon died at the age of just 55 in 2020, the world lost a profoundly unique writer, and one whose legacy and popularity follow him today. A truly stunning masterpiece of a book, and my personal favourite novel of all time. 

“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day…”

SKU: 1800275