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This article relates to The Price of Salt, or Carol
When Patricia Highsmith finished The Price of Salt in 1951, the manuscript was rejected by her publisher, Harper Bros., who had just put out her first hit novel Strangers on a Train. She sent the manuscript on to Coward-McCann (then an imprint of G.P. Putnam's Sons) using a pseudonym, Claire Morgan, and it was accepted for publication. (Coward-McCann went on to publish one of the author's best-known works, The Talented Mr. Ripley, in 1955.) The Price of Salt was not printed with Highsmith's real name on the cover until 1990.
After a single printing by Coward-McCann, the book was published in paperback by Bantam in 1953 with a cover that marketed it as a work of pulp fiction. Lesbian pulp fiction was an entire subgenre at the time, but The Price of Salt deviated from its most consistent thematic trend, in that books in this category usually ended with one or both women involved dead, committed to a mental institution, or otherwise ruined. Though actual sales figures are difficult to come by (and based, seemingly, on Highsmith's own reporting), several sources report that this edition sold in the area of a million copies. The book caught on, in particular, with queer women readers, who inundated the publisher with letters for "Claire Morgan." Highsmith recalls in the afterword of the 1990 edition, "I remember receiving envelopes of ten and fifteen letters a couple of times a week and for months on end." The letters, according to Highsmith, carried appreciative messages like, "Yours is the first book like this with a happy ending! We don't all commit suicide and lots of us are doing fine!" and, "Thank you for writing such a story. It is a little like my own story…"
In 1986, a new edition was put out by Naiad Press, a publisher that specialized in feminist and lesbian works specifically. Naiad was particularly interested in publishing The Price of Salt under Highsmith's real name and reportedly offered her an increased sum for the privilege but she refused. This edition is still notable for bringing the book to a wider queer audience, at a time when the liberation movements of the 1960s and '70s had advanced the cause of gay rights but the AIDS crisis had provided the impetus for tremendous backsliding in the way gays were viewed by mainstream society. The afterword in this edition included "Claire Morgan" surmising that "A lot of people must have identified with Carol or Therese" and declaring, "I am happy to think that [the book] gave several thousand lonely and frightened people something to hang onto." This edition likewise reportedly sold a million copies and there was conjecture at this point that Highsmith was the author, as some scholars recognized her writing style and also deduced that the Library of Congress was cross-posting works by "Claire Morgan" and Patricia Highsmith.
Finally, the book was published by Bloomsbury in 1990 with Highsmith's name on the cover, and this time under her preferred title, Carol. In the afterword of this edition, she justifies her previous use of a pseudonym, explaining, "If I were to write a novel about a lesbian relationship, would I then be labeled a lesbian-book writer? That was a possibility, even though I might never be inspired to write another such book in my life." And in fact, while other Highsmith works do engage with themes of sexuality and gender, she did not ever write another explicitly lesbian story. Her refusal to own the book for so long is understandable given the stigma against homosexuality that was still fairly rampant when she died in 1995. She had a complicated history with her own queerness, having pursued psychoanalysis in 1948 in an attempt to "regularize herself sexually" so she could marry a man she cared for, Marc Brandel. It didn't take, and she had tumultuous relationships with women throughout her adult life, despite staying closeted to those who did not know her personally. While The Price of Salt is quite different from Highsmith's other work, which is mostly confined to the thriller/mystery genres, it shares a great deal of the qualities of her other novels, including striking descriptive detail, complex and intense characters, and suspense.
In 2015, tie-in editions were published by both W.W. Norton & Company and Bloomsbury for the release of Carol, Todd Haynes' film adaption starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. The covers for both of these editions feature still images of the two lead actors from the movie.
Patricia Highsmith (1962), via Wikimedia Commons
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This article relates to The Price of Salt, or Carol.
It first ran in the January 29, 2025
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