8 /10 1 Votes8
Country United States Publication date March 12, 1967 | 4/5 Goodreads Language English Originally published 12 March 1967 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio book Adaptations Rosemary's Baby (1968), Rosemary's Baby (2014) Similar Ira Levin books, Horror books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
Contents
Plot summary
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 soon 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. Satan is.
Critical reception
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 ... is an expertly constructed story, a playwright's book, in which every physical detail and line of dialogue counts."
Adaptations
In 1968, the novel was adapted into a movie starring Mia Farrow, with John Cassavetes as Guy. Ruth Gordon, who played Minnie Castevet, won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Roman Polanski, who wrote and directed the film, was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. The exterior shots of the fictional Bramford apartment were filmed at The Dakota off Central Park West in New York City
In 2014, the novel was adapted as an NBC television mini-series with Zoe Saldana as Rosemary. The two-part miniseries aired on Mother's Day of that year.
Sequel
Levin published a sequel to the novel, titled Son of Rosemary in 1997. Levin dedicated it to Mia Farrow. A made-for-TV movie sequel to the Polanski film, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, was produced in 1976 but is unrelated to the book's sequel.