The Remains of the Day was published by Faber and Faber, London, on 13 May 1989, in a first printing of approximately 5,000 copies priced at £10.99. The novel won the Booker Prize in 1989 and was adapted into the 1993 Merchant Ivory film (starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson). Ishiguro received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, with the Swedish Academy praising “novels of great emotional force” that “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”
The Novel
Stevens — head butler at Darlington Hall for over thirty years — is driving through the English countryside in July 1956. His new employer (an American) has offered him the use of the car. Stevens’s ostensible purpose is to visit Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn), the former housekeeper, who may be available to return to service. His actual journey is through memory: an involuntary reckoning with his life, his choices, and what he has sacrificed.
Stevens is the perfect butler — his “dignity” (the word he obsessively analyses) consists in total self-effacement, the complete subordination of personal feeling to professional duty. He did not mourn when his father died in an upstairs bedroom while Stevens served at a diplomatic dinner downstairs. He did not acknowledge his love for Miss Kenton. He did not question Lord Darlington’s Nazi sympathies — serving at meetings with Ribbentrop and facilitating Darlington’s campaign for appeasement.
The novel’s devastating power lies in what Stevens cannot say. His narration is a masterpiece of unreliable self-presentation: every euphemism, every deflection, every moment of “perhaps I am not expressing myself clearly” reveals exactly what Stevens is suppressing. The reader understands Stevens better than Stevens understands himself — and the gap between his account and the reality is heartbreaking.
Collecting The Remains of the Day
First edition (1989, Faber and Faber, London): Approximately 5,000 copies, priced at £10.99.
Identification points:
- “First published in 1989” on the copyright page
- Published by “Faber and Faber Limited”
- Black cloth boards
First edition, first printing:
- Fine/Fine in dust jacket: $2,000–$6,000
- Near Fine in jacket: $800–$2,000
- Without jacket: $100–$300
Signed copies: Ishiguro signs at events with reasonable frequency. Signed first editions: $2,000–$5,000. The Nobel Prize (2017) drove a price spike.
Value trajectory (2016–2026): Approximately 2.5× for fine copies in jacket — the Nobel Prize significantly increased demand for all Ishiguro firsts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Stevens aware of his self-deception? The novel’s final scene — Stevens sitting on a pier at dusk, admitting that “my heart is breaking” — suggests a moment of genuine self-knowledge. Whether this leads to change or merely to resignation is left open.
Was Lord Darlington a Nazi? An appeaser and Nazi sympathiser — not a Nazi in the party-member sense. He represents the well-meaning English aristocracy that facilitated fascism through politeness, social connection, and the belief that “reasonable men” could negotiate with Hitler.
Is this about England? It is about England in the way that Stevens is about himself: the surface (civility, restraint, order) conceals depths that the narrator cannot acknowledge. The novel uses the butler as a metaphor for a national character defined by emotional repression.