Skip to content

Darkness At Noon
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Darkness At Noon Paperback - 1966 - 0553117068th Edition

by Arthur Koestler


About this book

Darkness at Noon, by Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he had helped to create. The novel is understood as an allegory to the USSR in 1938, the Great Purge, and the Moscow Trials. However, the text never mentions the Soviet Union or Russia (just “Country of the Revolution” and “Over There”) or Joseph Stalin (only “Number One,” a menacing dictator). Perhaps the lack of specific references is Koestler’s way of making the story seem more universal, but it’s clear he has in mind actual places, people, and events.

Koestler was actually a proponent of Marxism-Leninism until Stalin’s 1938 Purge and the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Afterwards, he edited an anti-Hitler, anti-Stalin newspaper. Koestler wrote the novel in German while living in Paris, from where he escaped in 1940 just before the Nazi troops arrived. Darkness at Noon owes its publication to the decision of sculptor Daphne Hardy, Koestler’s lover in Paris, to translate the text into English before she herself escaped.

Koestler wrote Darkness at Noon as the second part of a trilogy; the first volume is The Gladiators (1939), first published in Hungarian. It is a novel about the subversion of the Spartacus revolt. The third novel is Arrival and Departure (1943), about a refugee during World War II. By then living in London, Koestler wrote the third in English.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Sidney Kingsley adapted it for Broadway in 1951.    

First Edition Identification

Jonathan Cape published the first English edition of Darkness at Noon — translated by Daphne Hardy — in London in 1940.

Details

  • Title Darkness At Noon
  • Author Arthur Koestler
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition number 0553117068th
  • Edition 0553117068
  • Pages 216
  • Publisher Bantam Books, New York
  • Date 1966
  • ISBN 9780553117066
Back to Top

More Copies for Sale

Darkness At Noon
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Darkness At Noon

by Koestler, Arthur

  • Used
  • very good
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Very Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9780553117066
ISBN 10
0553117068
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£5.34
£2.81 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Bantam Books, 1966-01-01. Paperback. Very Good.
Item Price
£5.34
£2.81 shipping to USA
Darkness at noon
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Darkness at noon

by Koestler, Arthur (trans. Daphne Hardy)

  • Used
Condition
Used - Good
ISBN 13
9780553117066
ISBN 10
0553117068
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Dunfermline, Fife, United Kingdom
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£5.87
£8.03 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Used - Good. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages.
Item Price
£5.87
£8.03 shipping to USA
Darkness At Noon
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Darkness At Noon

by Koestler, Arthur

  • Used
  • Acceptable
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Acceptable
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9780553117066
ISBN 10
0553117068
Quantity Available
2
Seller
Seattle, Washington, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£7.52
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Bantam Books, 1966. Paperback. Acceptable. Disclaimer:Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Item Price
£7.52
FREE shipping to USA
Darkness at Noon
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Darkness at Noon

by Koestler, Arthur

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - ACC/GD+/ND
Edition
3rd, Reprint
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9780553117066
ISBN 10
0553117068
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£9.95
£14.95 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
SOFTBACK SHIPPED FROM THE UK.* Edition: Reprint.* Impression: 1st.* Date of Publication: 1966* Publisher: Penguin Classics.* Binding and cover condition: Black and white illustrated soft card covers. No bumps, slight rubs. Some shelf wear to edges & corners. No creases to spine, some to hinge. Minor damage at head of spine. GOOD* Contents condition: PRIVATE COPY NOT EX-LIBRARY. Crisp & tight. No annotations, inscriptions or marks to text, no reading wear. Heavy tanning to inside of covers, page margins and edges. ACC.* Illustrations: None.* Pages: 211 pp. text. v pp. advertisements at rear.* Product Description:- The cover shows a detail from ?Man in the Blue V 1954,? by Francis Bacon, in the Galleria d?Arte Gallatea, Turin. Born in Budapest in 1905, he became a journalist and travelled widely as a foreign correspondent. He gave up this profession in 1938 and published his first work with Penguin, writing from then on in English. Darkness at Noon is set in an unnamed country ruled by a totalitarian… Read More
Item Price
£9.95
£14.95 shipping to USA
Darkness At Noon

Darkness At Noon

by Koestler, Arthur

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Good with No dust jacket as issued
Edition
8th Printing
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9780553117066
ISBN 10
0553117068
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Odessa, Texas, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£10.04
£4.82 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
New York, NY: Bantam. Good with No dust jacket as issued. 1966. 8th Printing. Mass Market Paperback. 16mo 6" - 7" tall; 216 pages; Mass market paperback lightly rubbed at edges, spine ends and corner tips. Text block clean and pages tight. Previous store stamp. Bagged for protection. .
Item Price
£10.04
£4.82 shipping to USA
Darkness at Noon
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Darkness at Noon

by Koestler, Arthur

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
New. Appears unread, has some ta
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9780553117066
ISBN 10
0553117068
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Hildebran, North Carolina, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 2 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£19.18
£3.20 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Bantam Books, 1966. Mass-market paperback. New. Appears unread, has some ta. 216 p.; 18 cm. A Bantam book; NY4008
Item Price
£19.18
£3.20 shipping to USA