A Pearl Worth a Million
By Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 9/10/2001
Twenty months after its original hardcover publication, with a respectable first printing of 17,500, Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier has one million copies in print, in its hardcover edition from Dutton and trade paper edition from Plume. It was a favorite handsell by booksellers nationwide in both formats and has so far enjoyed a tenure of 34 weeks on PW's trade paper chart. The book is also impacting museum attendance. According to a New York Times article this past May, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Vermeer exhibit has been drawing twice as many visitors as a similar exhibition at D.C.'s National Gallery of Art in 1996. Dutton is hoping that Chevalier fans will be buying the next book, Fallen Angels, to be published October 15. Chevalier, who resides in London, will travel to the U.S. on October 14 for media interviews and bookstore appearances.
