Rosemary's Baby (novel)

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Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (1967) front cover, first edition.jpg
Cover of 1967 first edition
Author Ira Levin
LanguageEnglish
Genre Horror
Publisher Random House
Publication date
April 13, 1967
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback) and Audio Book
Followed by Son of Rosemary  

Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 horror novel by American writer Ira Levin; it was his second published book. The novel follows a young couple who move into an apartment building, where they befriend an older couple in the neighboring apartment, who become increasingly involved when Rosemary falls pregnant. It was the best-selling horror novel of the 1960s, selling over four million copies. [1] The high popularity of the novel was a catalyst for a boom in popularity for horror fiction, which achieved enormous commercial success in its wake. [2]

Contents

Plot

The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who moves into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. Guy has so far appeared only in small roles in the stage plays Luther, Nobody Loves an Albatross, and various TV commercials. A friend warns the pair that the Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they discount this. Rosemary wants to start a family, but Guy prefers waiting until his career is more established.

Neighbors Minnie and Roman Castevet, an eccentric, elderly couple, welcome Rosemary and Guy to the Bramford. Rosemary finds them meddlesome and annoying, but Guy begins frequently visiting them.

After the lead actor in a new stage play suddenly goes blind, Guy is cast in the role. Immediately afterward, Guy unexpectedly agrees with Rosemary that they should have their first child. That night, Rosemary dreams of a rough sexual encounter with a huge, inhuman creature with yellow eyes. The next morning Rosemary finds claw marks on her breasts and groin, which Guy dismisses as resulting from his hangnail, which he has cut. Rosemary subsequently learns that she is pregnant.

Rosemary falls severely ill; but her intense pain and weight loss are ignored by others and attributed to hysteria. Her doctor and Minnie feed her strange and foul concoctions. Rosemary also develops a peculiar craving for raw meat.

Guy's performance in the play garners favorable notices, and other increasingly significant roles follow. Guy soon begins talking about a career in Hollywood.

Rosemary's friend, Edward "Hutch" Hutchins, also becomes mysteriously ill. He had sent Rosemary a warning, leading to her discovery that Roman Castevet is the leader of a Satanic coven. She suspects her unborn baby is wanted as a sacrifice to the devil. Despite her growing conviction, she is unable to convince anyone, particularly Guy. Ultimately, Rosemary discovers the coven's real intent for wanting her baby, whom she names Andrew.

Publication

Ira Levin published his debut novel A Kiss Before Dying in 1953, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. His sophomore novel was Rosemary's Baby, which was published by Random House on April 13, 1967. [3] [4]

Levin was inspired by the idea of a woman pregnant with a fetus which was not human — he briefly considered having the father be an extraterrestrial but felt that this would be too similar to John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos . [5] Having decided on Manhattan as the setting, specifically the Bramford apartment building, which was inspired by The Dakota, Levin used contemporary newspapers to include real world events in the novel, such as the 1966 transit strike, the 1965 mayoral election and the 1965 visit of the Pope, which would lend a realistic air to the story. [6]

The Dakota (pictured in 1965) served as the inspiration for the Bramford Historic American Buildings Survey, 1965, SOUTH (FRONT) FACADE. - The Dakota (Apartments), 1 West Seventy-second Street, Central Park West, New York, New York County, NY HABS NY,31-NEYO,74-1 (cropped).tif
The Dakota (pictured in 1965) served as the inspiration for the Bramford

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

On the first edition dust jacket, Truman Capote compared the novel to Henry James's The Turn of the Screw , however in a review for The New York Times , Eliot Fremont-Smith favored a comparison to early Evelyn Waugh or late Thorne Smith. [6] The novel was a best-seller, selling over four-million copies and becoming the best-selling horror novel of the 1960s. [1] It received rave reviews upon its publication, including a starred review from Kirkus and declarations that it was a modern masterpiece. [3] [7]

Later analysis

The writer Cherry Wilder wrote that "Rosemary's Baby is one of the most perfectly crafted thrillers ever written". [8] Horror scholar Gary Crawford described Rosemary's Baby as "a genuine masterpiece". [9] David Pringle described the novel as "this sly, seductive impeccably-written horror novel ... is an expertly constructed story, a playwright's book, in which every physical detail and line of dialogue counts." [1] Rosemary's Baby was considered a forerunner to the fiction of Stephen King and Peter Straub, and the novel and film were credited with inspiring the popularity of mass-market horror fiction in the 1970s and 1980s and later successful film series such as The Exorcist and The Omen . [10] [2] [7]

Sequel

Thirty years later Levin published a sequel to the novel, titled Son of Rosemary (1997). [11] Levin dedicated it to Mia Farrow.

Censorship

Rosemary's Baby was published in Spanish translation during the Francoist dictatorship. The Francoist censors cut passages from this translation, claiming the cut passages "glorified Satan". [12] As of April 2019, all the Spanish-language editions of the book still retain these cuts. [12]

Adaptations

The film rights were sold prior to publication to William Castle. [5] In 1968, the novel was adapted as a film of the same name, starring Mia Farrow, with John Cassavetes as Guy. Ruth Gordon, who played Minnie Castevet, won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Roman Polanski, who wrote and directed the film, was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. [13]

A television film sequel to the Polanski film, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby , was produced in 1976.

In 2014, the novel was adapted as an NBC television miniseries, with Zoe Saldaña as Rosemary and Patrick J. Adams as Guy. [14] Set in Paris, the two-part series was directed by Agnieszka Holland. [15]

Paramount produced a prequel in 2024 titled Apartment 7A , starring Julia Garner and Dianne Wiest. [16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Eiss 1994, p. 38.
  2. 1 2 Pringle 2014, p. 103.
  3. 1 2 "Rosemary's Baby". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  4. ↑ Backer 2015, p. 308.
  5. 1 2 Levin, Ira (November 5, 2012). ""Stuck with Satan": Ira Levin on the Origins of Rosemary's Baby". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  6. 1 2 "Books of The Times; What Witches? Where? (Published 1967)". April 7, 1967. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  7. 1 2 Counter, Rosemary (June 1, 2017). "The Most Cursed Hit Movie Ever Made". Vanity Fair. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  8. ↑ Cherry Wilder, "Levin, Ira" in Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers by Curtis C. Smith. St. James Press, 1986; ISBN   0-912289-27-9 (pp. 443-444).
  9. ↑ Gary Crawford, "Ira Levin" in Jack Sullivan (ed.) (1986) The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural Viking Press, 1986; ISBN   0-670-80902-0 (pg. 264).
  10. ↑ McCarthy & Murphy 2016, p. 128.
  11. ↑ Christopher Bonanos, "No Rest For The Wicked", New York Magazine , p. 135 (8 September 1997).
  12. 1 2 Cornellà-Detrell, Jordi (April 15, 2019). "Franco's invisible legacy: books across the Hispanic world are still scarred by his censorship". The Conversation . Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  13. ↑ Fran Capo, Myths and Mysteries of New York: True Stories of the Unsolved and Unexplained, pg. 25 (Morris Book Publishing, 2011); ISBN   978-0-7627-6107-4
  14. ↑ Stanley, Alessandra (May 8, 2014). "Wanting a Child in the Worst Way". The New York Times . Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  15. ↑ Donadio, Rachel (May 8, 2014). "Bedeviled Anew by a Pregnancy". The New York Times . Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  16. ↑ Wilkinson, Alissa (September 26, 2024). "'Apartment 7A' Review: All Devil, Few Details". The New York Times . Retrieved August 27, 2025.

Sources

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