Rosemary's Baby (novel)
Cover of 1967 first edition
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| Author | Ira Levin |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
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Publication date
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March 12, 1967 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio book |
Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 best-selling horror novel by Ira Levin, his second published book. It sold over 4 million copies "making it the top bestselling horror novel of the 1960s." The commercial success of the novel helped launch a "horror boom", where horror fiction would achieve enormous commercial success.
The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who has just moved into the Bramford, an old Gothic Revival style New York City apartment building with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. The pair is warned that the Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they choose to overlook this. Rosemary has wanted children for some time, but Guy wants to wait until he is more established.
Rosemary and Guy are quickly welcomed to the Bramford by neighbors Minnie and Roman Castevet, an eccentric elderly couple. Rosemary finds them meddlesome and absurd, but Guy begins paying them frequent visits.
After a theatrical rival suddenly goes blind, Guy is given an important part in a stage play. Immediately afterward, Guy unexpectedly agrees with Rosemary that it is time to conceive their first child.
Guy's performance in the stage play brings him favorable notice and he is subsequently cast in other, increasingly important roles; he begins to talk about a career in Hollywood.
After receiving a warning from a friend, who also becomes mysteriously ill, Rosemary discovers that her neighbors are the leaders of a Satanic coven, and she suspects they intend to steal her child and use it as a sacrifice to the Devil. Despite her growing conviction, she is unable to convince anyone else and soon becomes certain that there is no one actually on her side, least of all her own husband. Ultimately, Rosemary finds that she is wrong about the coven's reason for wanting the baby — the baby that she delivers is the Antichrist, and Guy is not actually the father.
Cherry Wilder stated "Rosemary's Baby is one of the most perfectly crafted thrillers ever written". Horror scholar Gary Crawford described Rosemary's Baby as "a genuine masterpiece".David Pringle called Rosemary's Baby "this sly, seductive impeccably-written horror novel...it is an expertly constructed story, a playwright's book, in which every physical detail and line of dialogue counts."
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