Buy used: $8.93

$3.99 delivery November 2 - 24. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by momox Shop

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Follow the Authors

Ira Levin

Otto Penzler

Rosemary's Baby Paperback – May 5, 2014

by Ira Levin (Author), Otto Penzler (Introduction)

4.5 4,553 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$8.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$5.95

$7.95 with discounted Audible membership

Hardcover, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$28.99

—

Paperback, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$15.29

—

Paperback, May 5, 2014

$8.93

$33.95

$8.34

Mass Market Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.15

$12.01

$9.98

Audio CD, CD, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$22.74

—

Pocket Book

"Please retry"

$6.31

—

$6.31

A masterpiece of spellbinding suspense, where evil wears the most innocent face of all...

Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor husband Guy move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and mostly elderly residents. Neighbors Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome the Woodhouses to the building, and despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband takes a special shine to them. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant, and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavets' circle is not what it seems...

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pegasus Books
Publication date

May 5, 2014
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
ISBN-10

1605981109
ISBN-13

978-1605981109
See all details

Ira Levin
2,261
Paperback
95 offers from $3.08
Robert Bloch
3,443
Paperback
33 offers from $4.91
Jay Anson
1,311
Paperback
1 offer from $17.99
Shirley Jackson
22,981
Paperback
Teachers' pick
94 offers from $4.39
Danielle Valentine
816
Hardcover
1 offer from $18.10
Stephen King
16,724
Paperback
78 offers from $8.95

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Suspense is beautifully intertwined with everyday incidents; the delicate line between belief and disbelief is faultlessly drawn.”
- The New York Times

“A succession of solid and quite legitimate surprises. The suspense is admirably sustained.”
- The New Yorker

“A darkly brilliant tale of modern devilry that induces the reader to believe the unbelievable. I believed it and was altogether enthralled.”
- Truman Capote

About the Author

Ira Levin is the author of The Boys from Brazil, Rosemary’s Baby, Son of Rosemary, The Stepford Wives, This Perfect Day, Sliver, and A Kiss Before Dying (for which he won the Edgar Award). Levin was also the recipient of three Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Awards. His website is www.iralevin.org.

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. He is the founder of the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books, and has received an Edgar Award, an Ellery Queen Award, and a Raven Award for his contribution to the mystery field. His anthology The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps was a New York Times Bestseller.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pegasus Books (May 5, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1605981109
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1605981109
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #792,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #22,769 in Horror Literature & Fiction
- #31,310 in Suspense Thrillers
- #37,406 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 4,553 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Important information

To report an issue with this product, click here.

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Ira Levin
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
See more on the author's page
Otto Penzler
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Otto Penzler is the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop (www.mysteriousbookshop.com) in New York City and is regarded as the world's foremost authority on crime, mystery and suspense fiction. He founded The Mysterious Press in 1975, which he later sold to Warner Books (1989). He reacquired the imprint in 2010 and it now publishes original books as an imprint at Grove/Atlantic, and both original works and classic crime fiction through MysteriousPress.com (www.mysteriouspress.com), in partnership with Open Road Integrated Media.
Penzler is a prolific editor, and has won two Edgar Awards, for Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977 and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994 and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

4,553 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Pamela S. Simone

Still a Good Story

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2023

Verified Purchase

I remember when the novel came out and then the movie. I also remember the Is God Dead? article in Time magazine.
The novel makes it seem possible.
Rosemary isn’t a particularly strong person and allows her lack of self-confidence and insecurities to make her vulnerable to the events. She distanced herself from her family and her strongest bonds are with Edward “Hutch” Hutchins, a kindly neighbor, and with Guy, her husband.
However, she does not feel that secure with Guy, who is somewhat narcissistic and distant with Rosemary because of he is so focused on his career. As the story unfolds, it becomes very clear to what lengths he is willing to not only compromise himself but sacrifice Rosemary as well, the whole time trying to rationalize that it isn’t just his ego that he’s feeding but that this is an altruistic compromise to provide a home, worldly comforts, the family, and security for Rosemary. Yet he lacks the confidence in himself to believe he can get these things on his own without sacrificing others to get what he wants.
One thing I noticed when re-reading the novel is the view of women. Rosemary is treated as a child or just a means to an end by most of the other characters. Guy is so worried about what she may learn that he tries to forbid her seeking another medical opinion about her suffering because his role may be exposed.
While Roman, Minnie, and Dr Sapirstein all seem empathetic to her plight, they really do very little to really help. They are more concerned with seeing a successful delivery. While the doctor sees her weekly, he is dismissive of her pain and just keeps repeating that it will “go away in a few days.”
Even Dr Hill does not take her concerns seriously and dismisses her as hysterical when she reaches out for help. He calls Guy and returns her to Guy and Sapirstein like she is a runaway child.
It’s an interesting read and worth the time.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

PURPLEHAZE

Horror From A Different Age

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

Frankly, those who have been mesmerized by splatter fests, CGI, and other techniques of modern horror and, thus, desensitized to the merits of intricate, symbolic and subtler depictions of horror are unlikely to like this novel. Disregarding the negative reviews, I read this novel because I liked the movie and was curious about the book upon which it was based.

I think that "Rosemary's Baby" was an intriguing and enjoyable literary experience for me because I realize that this novel was written in 1966 which was a vastly different social, literary and cinematic age from what now exists and what has existed for centuries. Moreover, I read this novel with an appreciation of and respect for the fact that this novel was "one of the half dozen most influential horror novels of all time. This novel and it's excellent film adaptation spurred a virtual flood of exorcists, omens, demon seeds, changelings and other hackneyed copycats." Consequently, as I read it I gave it the measure of respect and deference it should be afforded.

The plot, of course, is original (for its time) and the level of character development is appropriate. The pace of the story is medium which is well suited to the storyline. There's mystery, suspense, intervals of action, rape, the occult and Satanism. Where's the horror you may ask. Oh, there's horror but one fails to discern and be "creeped out" by the horror within this novel because one is making the mistake of measuring the merits of the type of horror depicted within this novel to the type depicted within the horror books that one has read in the last 1 to 40 years. No comparison should be attempted because to do so is folly and can only lead to making reading this novel a disappointing experience. It's the equivalent of comparing apples to oranges and asking which is the sweeter fruit. Beside the obvious one, the horrors in this novel are more obscure and oblique, i.e., the horror of innocence loss, inconceivable betrayal, man's willingness to obtain wealth, fame and power at any costs, the callous murder of a good man, rape by a vile creature and the acceptance of evil.

I also really liked that Levin wasn't verbose, that his sentence structure was precise and that he avoided excessive prose and descriptions. Gosh, I don't want to even imagine how that would have bogged the story down! This style is sadly lacking in a lot of even the most famous horror novelist of our age. I'm an veracious reader but I bore easily so, of course, I can't stand it when an author slows a story to a snail's crawl by filling it with excessive dialogue, excessive descriptions, superficial details and/or superficial characters. The latter is why I've never read a novel by Stephen King. And before his fans send me insulting comments, I respect his talent, respect his work, simple love the screen adaptations of almost all of his books and really would love to read several of his earlier books. However, with a few exceptions, any book 800 pages or longer is beyond my patience because I just know that somewhere along the line the pace of the story is going to get frustratingly slow and bogged down.

Finally I think if one can manage to set aside preconceived notions of what constitutes horror or at least broaden one's mind enough to accept & appreciate more subtle forms of the term "horror" than this will be an enjoyable literary experience. If not, just skip this one!

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Amanda GRIFFITHS-JONES

Classic Suspense

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is an absolute classic book that never gets old. With darkly gothic undertones it follows the progress of Rosemary’s pregnancy with a suspense rarely found in modern day books. Brilliant in it’s simplicity, I’ve loved every chapter.

Jon Ferguson

So much better than the film!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 26, 2023

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed the novel so much more than the film. There is a real sense of mounting tension, foreboding and paranoia. Add to that Rosemary's isolation and a very cool 1960's feel to the narrative. A very disturbing read!

One person found this helpful

Squeaky Joe

A cracking good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

Rosemary and actor-husband, Guy, are desperate to move out of their one-room bachelor pad when they hear about an apartment in the Bramford. The old New York City building might have a worrying reputation and a tenant list that seems only to include ‘mature’ residents, but the couple pull a few strings and soon move into the four-room apartment. Two of their new neighbours, Roman and Minnie Castevet, become regular visitors to the young couple’s residence and while they may be a little eccentric, seem fairly harmless. However, when Rosemary becomes pregnant, the Castevets take her forthcoming happy event a little too seriously and begin foisting gifts on Rosemary, some of which are just plain weird. As well as insisting she go to their own doctor rather than the one she had chosen, the mother-to-be soon finds herself becoming suspicious of the amount of time her husband spends with the old couple as well as the pair’s elderly, and equally weird, friends. When a young woman staying with the Castevets dies suddenly, Rosemary begins to wonder…

Although not an out-and-out horror novel, Rosemary’s Baby is nevertheless pretty damn creepy. Levin manages to create a gradual feeling of uncertainty and suspicion in his main character, pushing her towards increasingly bizarre theories concerning her neighbours. The book is an easy read and the author doesn’t waste time on irrelevancies, moving the plot continually forwards. My only criticism is that the paperback edition I bought has rather a lot of typos and additional (misplaced and repeated) commas dotted here and there, which you’d think, with a book first published in the sixties, would have been ironed out by now.

Aside from that, this is a cracking good read leading to an unsettling and sinister denouement that no doubt inspired horror writers the world over.

7 people found this helpful

laura anne miller

Still relevant, a book you can't put down,,,

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book grips the reader from
he outset. Ira Levin transports the reader to 1960s new York with ease. The story is gripping. Once you start you have to finish!!!

Zuky the BookBum

Note to self and others: beware of overly friendly neighbours.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is amazing. At just over 200 pages, this novel takes you on a hell (excuse the pun) of a journey that you won’t forget anytime soon. Levin has managed to make a novel so witty, and at the same time, so terrifying. In a way, the tone of this book is reminiscent of American Psycho (or rather American Psycho is reminiscent of this as it came out afterwards), but rather than in-your-face vulgar gore, this is far more psychologically disturbing. Never has such a mundane life, as Rosemarys and Guy’s, ever been so horrifying.

I’d already watched the movie when I picked this up, so I knew what this novel was about and what happened, and I think, maybe, that made me enjoy this more. When you know how the story plays out, the tension in this really grips you and you find yourself angry and empathetic towards Rosemary’s naivety. I think if I went into this novel not knowing, Rosemary would have simply pissed me off, she’s that sort of weak and dependant woman I oh-so hate in books, but it was a different experience for me, knowing what I know. That’s not to say you won’t like this going into it blind, I’m sure the tension and horror of this will affect you just the same way and you'll get the pleasure of the pure shock of the discovery, something I didn't.

I’ve said previously that I find it hard to really hate a character in a book, as I often find things to like about them, despite all their bad ways, but that’s not the case in this one. Let’s just say there is one specific character in this I hate more than anyone (in any other book ever, so far) for their betrayal, all for their own selfish gain.

The ending of this novel is one of the hardest, if not the hardest to swallow. It’s so distressing and so upsetting. I can’t say anything more than that, but it’s truly, truly awful.

I’m really trying not to give too much away with this review, it’s hard not to say so many things, but I think it’s OK to mention the fact this book is about devilry (it’s written on the book as a quote from Capote so it can’t exactly be ignored)! This is a truly terrifying novel, and if you had qualms about having children before, you’ll definitely have more after reading this book.

This is a one sitting read for me and I’m actually excited to re-read it sometime in the future. This work is a masterpiece. Levin is an incredible writer and I’m now aiming to read the rest of his work by the end of the year.

3 people found this helpful

See more reviews

Image Unavailable

Follow the Authors

Rosemary's Baby Paperback – May 5, 2014

Similar items that may ship from close to you