The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty: An Erotic Novel of Tenderness and Cruelty for the Enjoyment of Men and Women
Price: $350.00
Hard Cover. New York: E. P. Dutton, Inc., 1983. First Edition. About Fine / Dust Jacket Included.
First edition, first printing. Signed by Rice on the title page. Publisher's tan cloth, spine lettered in red; in the original pictorial dust jacket designed by Draper Shreeve, depicting a blindfolded nude woman, lettered in black with a rose and a decorative whip device to the front panel. A tiny spot to the half-title page and to the front board, else fine book; fine unclipped dust jacket. Overall, a crisp copy of the first book in The Sleeping Beauty Quartet. Originally published anonymously under the pseudonym of A. N. Roquelaure, The Sleeping Beauty Quartet is Anne Rice's BDSM erotica series, written nearly a decade after the success of her first novel, Interview with the Vampire (1976). The series is comprised of The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983), Beauty's Punishment (1984), Beauty's Release (1985), and, thirty years later, Beauty's Kingdom (2015). Taking loose inspiration from Sleeping Beauty, it follows Beauty and several male characters through various erotic adventures. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty takes place in a castle of sexual "tenderness and cruelty," where she falls for Prince Alexi. As stated on the dust jacket, "Here at last, written with grace and power, bathed in a sublime eroticism, is a fairy tale for adults only." Item #ARC006
