Lavinia (2008) Signed First Edition Reference

Lavinia is Le Guin’s late masterpiece — a novel that gives voice to Lavinia, the woman who in Virgil’s Aeneid is fought over by Aeneas and Turnus but never speaks. Published by Harcourt in 2008, the novel reimagines the final books of the Aeneid from Lavinia’s perspective, creating a character of depth, intelligence, and autonomy from a woman who was, in Virgil’s original, merely a prize.

The Book

Le Guin’s Lavinia is aware that she is a character in a poem — she has encountered Virgil’s shade and knows that her existence depends on his words. This meta-fictional layer adds philosophical depth to what is already a richly imagined historical novel. The rural Italian setting is rendered with the same sensory precision Le Guin brings to Earthsea, and Lavinia’s voice — steady, observant, pragmatic — is one of Le Guin’s finest creations.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: Harcourt, New York Publication date: 2008 Format: Hardcover in dust jacket

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition, fine/fine: $75–$200
• Unsigned first edition: $10–$20

Lavinia may be the most undervalued title in the Le Guin bibliography. Its literary quality is extraordinary — equal to The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed — and the current prices reflect the relative obscurity of a late-career non-genre novel.