A Fine & Private Place

"I first read A Fine and Private Place in 1970. It was my first introduction to the work of Peter S. Beagle. I was 18 years old. That I can still recall the opening scene so clearly is an indication that this book was a unique experience for me as a reader. I immediately followed this book by reading The Last Unicorn. A Fine and Private Place is a contemporary 'ghost' story set in a cemetery, and The Last Unicorn is a lovely fantasy set in an alternate world. I recommend both of them without reservation."
–Robin Hobb, author of Assassin's Apprentice and Assassin's Fate

"I can't think of a better book to buy for someone you love this holiday season."
–Omnivoracious.com

"One of literature's most beautiful works about ghostly times and places...told with wit, charm, and a sense of individuality."
–New York Times Book Review

"A Fine & Private Place is just as wonderful as I remembered it to be: beautifully written, the characters warmly drawn, the pages filled with conversations that run the gamut of the human condition.... It's a great book in a lovely affordable package."
–Fantasy & Science Fiction

"Both sepulchral and oddly appealing.... [Beagle's] ectoplasmic fable has a distinct mossy charm."
–TIME Magazine

"Delightful!"
–San Francisco Chronicle

"A sweet, sad, and smart novel about life, death and love...a book that has endured for a reason."
–The Agony Column

"A wonderful work of literature...a gem of a novel."
–BookLoons

"Over a cold beverage and a hot bowl of chili, Peter Beagle recently told me how he came to write A Fine & Private Place. He was just nineteen years old at the time, the length of time that Mr. Rebeck spent in that cemetery. He was working as a counselor at a boys' summer camp. Once the campers were settled for the night there wasn't much for the counselors to do. Those who had sweethearts at the girls' camp across the lake would borrow canoes and paddle across to see them. Peter had no such luck, he told me, so he warmed up his rattly little portable typewriter, cracked open a ream of paper, and starting writing a book. We are all incredibly lucky that Peter had no girlfriend that summer."
–Dick Lupoff, SF Site

"An amazing read.... If fantastically developed characters trapped between love and death appeal to you, this is a nearly perfect book."
–Paperblog