Edward Saids, "Orientalism," First Edition in Original Dust Jacket, 1978

Edward Said

First Edition

First edition of Edward Said's "Orientalism," 1978, a foundational text of postcolonial studies expressing a critique of European and American perceptions of the wider Middle East. Written while Said was a professor at Columbia University, Orientalism argued that the “Orient” was not simply a geographic designation but a category shaped through Western scholarship, literature, art, travel writing, and colonial administration. This original dust jacket uses Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1880 painting The Snake Charmer, an image chosen for its embodiment of the kind of Western Orientalist visual culture Said placed under examination.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. First edition, first impression. Hardback in original blue cloth, gilt lettering to spine and upper board, in the original unclipped dust jacket. Inscription on front free endpaper: “To Bill / Happy Birthday and Happy Orienteering. / Ann-Marie,” dated January 24, 1979. 368 pages. The contents include “The Scope of Orientalism,” “Orientalist Structures and Restructures,” and “Orientalism Now,” with sections on “Knowing the Oriental,” “Imaginative Geography and Its Representations,” “Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan,” “Modern Anglo-French Orientalism in Fullest Flower,” and “The Latest Phase.”

Said’s best-known work appeared when colonial history, academic authority, and cultural representation were being reassessed across the humanities. Its argument that Western depictions of the Middle East were bound to structures of political and intellectual power made the book a defining text for postcolonial studies and a continuing point of debate in Middle Eastern studies, literary criticism, history, art history, and political theory. Minor edgewear to jacket; jacket unclipped with bright colors to covers and spine; no internal writing apart from the 1979 gift inscription; binding tight and square. Overall very good condition. A well-preserved first edition of the book that made Orientalism a central term in modern debates over empire, representation, and the construction of East and West.

Item #23585

Price: $650.00