Art Shop Spotlight showcases the weird, wonderful, and different in More Moe's on the fourth floor. Today: a rare first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from 1964Arguably Roald Dahl's best known book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has captured the minds of generations. It has spawned numerous adaptations including a stage musical, a video game, an opera, a theme park ride, a radio play, and most notably two film adaptations: one in 1971 starring Gene Wilder, and one in 2009 starring Johnny Depp.Here at Moe's we have a copy of the book that started it all: a first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, published in America by Alfred A. Knopf in 1964. It is available on our ebay store or in the art shop on the 4th floor.Seller Notes:First edition, first printing, first state. The American edition predates the British edition by three years. All the points are there: six line biography and six line printer's information on the colophon at rear, original $3.95 price on dust jacket, no ISBN at rear, red cloth and mustard endpapers.There is a slight abrasion on the front panel of the dust jacket, small stain to textblock top. Book and jacket are both very good minus.Price: $1500.00The original text of the book is different from what many may be familiar with; in the first edition, the oompa loompas are Black Africans. This was revised in later editions so that they came from a made up country, though many still find this offensive. Early drafts of the book were quite different from what became the first published edition ofCharlie. In other versions, there are more children, Mr. Wonka is married, and there's even one where Charlie Bucket is Black.Whatever your opinions of the book and its author, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remains a fixture of children's literature.
