.gif)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)
Encyclopedia
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella
by Truman Capote
published in 1958
. The main character, Holly Golightly, is one of Capote's best-known creations and an American cultural icon.
apartment in Manhattan
's Upper East Side
. Holly (age 18-19) is a country girl turned New York café society
girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who take her to clubs and restaurants, and give her money and expensive presents; she hopes to marry one of them. According to Capote, Golightly is not a prostitute but an "American geisha."
Holly likes to stun people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoints on various topics. Over the next year, she slowly reveals herself to the narrator, who finds himself fascinated by her curious lifestyle. In the end, Holly fears that she will never know what is really hers until after she has thrown it away. Their relationship ends in autumn 1944.
, unlike the character in the film.
Holly Golightly: The protagonist.
Joe Bell: A bartender acquainted with both "Fred" and Holly.
Mag Wildwood: Holly's friend and sometime roommate, a fellow socialite and model.
Rusty Trawler: A presumed wealthy man, thrice divorced, well-known in society circles.
Jose Yberra-Jaegar: A Brazil
ian diplomat, who is the companion of Mag Wildwood and, later, of Holly.
Doc Golightly: A veterinarian
from Texas
, whom Holly married as a teenager.
O. J. Berman: A Hollywood
agent, who has discovered Holly and groomed her to become a professional actress.
Salvatore "Sally" Tomato: A convicted racketeer, whom Holly visits weekly in Sing Sing
prison.
Madame Sapphia Spanella: Another tenant in the brownstone.
Mr. I. Y. Yunioshi: A photographer, who lives in the top floor studio in the brownstone.
, Oona Chaplin
, writer/actress Carol Grace
, writer Maeve Brennan
, writer Doris Lilly model Dorian Leigh
(whom Capote dubbed "Happy Go Lucky"), and her sister, model Suzy Parker
. Capote’s biographer Gerald Clarke wrote "half the women he knew . . .claimed to be the model for his wacky heroine" Clarke also wrote of the similarities between the author himself and the character. There are also similarities between the lives of Holly and Capote's mother, Nina Capote; among other shared attributes both women were born in the rural south with similar "hick" birth names that they changed (Holly Golightly was born Lula Mae Barnes in Texas, Nina Capote was born Lillie Mae Faulk in Alabama), both left the husbands they married as teenagers and abandoned relatives they loved and were responsible for to go to New York, and both achieved "café society" status through relationships with wealthier men, though Capote's mother was born two decades earlier than the fictional Holly Golightly. Capote was also unsuccessfully sued for libel and invasion of privacy by a Manhattan resident named Bonnie Golightly who claimed that he had based Holly on her.
. Shortly afterward, a collection of the novella and three short stories by Capote was published by Random House
.
The collection has been reprinted several times; the novella has been included in other Capote collections.
pointed out Capote's debt to Christopher Isherwood
, one of his mentors, in creating the character of Holly Golightly: "Breakfast at Tiffany’s is in many ways Capote’s personal crystallization of [Isherwood's] Sally Bowles."
Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill
notes that Holly is a kindred spirit of Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, the central character of his short story "Children on Their Birthdays." She observes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness."
Capote himself acknowledged that Golightly was the favorite of his characters.
The novella's prose style prompted Norman Mailer
to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation," adding that he "would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany's".
movie Breakfast at Tiffany's starring Audrey Hepburn
and directed by Blake Edwards
. The movie was transposed to circa 1960 rather than the 1940s, the period of the novella.
, a musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, premiered in 1966 in Boston. The initial performances were panned by the critics and despite a rewrite by Edward Albee
, it closed after only four performances.
and Jack Kruschen
starred in another adaptation, Holly Golightly (1969), an unsold ABC
sitcom pilot. Kruschen's role was based on Joe Bell, a major character in Capote's novella who was omitted from the film version.
adapted the novella into a play for a 2009 production at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London, directed by Sean Mathias
and starring Anna Friel
as Holly Golightly and Joseph Cross as William Parsons.
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
by Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
published in 1958
1958 in literature
The year 1958 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*August 18 - Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in United States.*First volume of The Civil War by Shelby Foote is published....
. The main character, Holly Golightly, is one of Capote's best-known creations and an American cultural icon.
Plot
In autumn 1943, the unnamed narrator becomes friends with Holly Golightly, who calls him "Fred", after her older brother. The two are both tenants in a brownstoneBrownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...
apartment in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
. Holly (age 18-19) is a country girl turned New York café society
Café Society
Café society was the collective description for the so-called "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London beginning in the late 19th century...
girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who take her to clubs and restaurants, and give her money and expensive presents; she hopes to marry one of them. According to Capote, Golightly is not a prostitute but an "American geisha."
Holly likes to stun people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoints on various topics. Over the next year, she slowly reveals herself to the narrator, who finds himself fascinated by her curious lifestyle. In the end, Holly fears that she will never know what is really hers until after she has thrown it away. Their relationship ends in autumn 1944.
Characters
"Fred": The narrator, whom Capote acknowledged is gayGay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, unlike the character in the film.
Holly Golightly: The protagonist.
Joe Bell: A bartender acquainted with both "Fred" and Holly.
Mag Wildwood: Holly's friend and sometime roommate, a fellow socialite and model.
Rusty Trawler: A presumed wealthy man, thrice divorced, well-known in society circles.
Jose Yberra-Jaegar: A Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian diplomat, who is the companion of Mag Wildwood and, later, of Holly.
Doc Golightly: A veterinarian
Veterinary medicine
Veterinary Medicine is the branch of science that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in non-human animals...
from Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, whom Holly married as a teenager.
O. J. Berman: A Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
agent, who has discovered Holly and groomed her to become a professional actress.
Salvatore "Sally" Tomato: A convicted racketeer, whom Holly visits weekly in Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
prison.
Madame Sapphia Spanella: Another tenant in the brownstone.
Mr. I. Y. Yunioshi: A photographer, who lives in the top floor studio in the brownstone.
Conception
In early drafts of the story Holly was named Connie Gustafson; Capote later changed her name to Holiday Golightly. He apparently based the character of Holly on several different women, all friends or close acquaintances of his. Claims have been made as to the source of the character, the "real Holly Golightly", in what Capote called the "Holly Golightly Sweepstakes"; including socialite Gloria VanderbiltGloria Vanderbilt
Gloria Laura Vanderbilt is an American artist, author, actress, heiress, and socialite most noted as an early developer of designer blue jeans...
, Oona Chaplin
Oona O'Neill
Oona, Lady Chaplin was the daughter of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill and writer Agnes Boulton, and the wife of British actor, director and producer Charlie Chaplin....
, writer/actress Carol Grace
Carol Grace
Carol Grace was an American actress and author. She is usually referred to as Carol Marcus Saroyan or Carol Matthau....
, writer Maeve Brennan
Maeve Brennan
Maeve Brennan , was an Irish short story writer and journalist. She moved to the United States in 1934 when her father was appointed to the Irish Legation in Washington. She was an important figure in both Irish diaspora writing and in Irish writing itself...
, writer Doris Lilly model Dorian Leigh
Dorian Leigh
Dorian Leigh was an American model and one of the earliest modelling icons of the fashion industry. She is considered one of the first supermodels and was well known in the United States and Europe.-Biography:Dorian Leigh Parker was born in San Antonio, Texas, to George and Elizabeth Parker...
(whom Capote dubbed "Happy Go Lucky"), and her sister, model Suzy Parker
Suzy Parker
Suzy Parker was an American model and actress active from 1947 into the early 1960s. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s when she appeared on the cover of dozens of magazines, advertisements, and in movie and television roles.She appeared in several Revlon advertisements, but...
. Capote’s biographer Gerald Clarke wrote "half the women he knew . . .claimed to be the model for his wacky heroine" Clarke also wrote of the similarities between the author himself and the character. There are also similarities between the lives of Holly and Capote's mother, Nina Capote; among other shared attributes both women were born in the rural south with similar "hick" birth names that they changed (Holly Golightly was born Lula Mae Barnes in Texas, Nina Capote was born Lillie Mae Faulk in Alabama), both left the husbands they married as teenagers and abandoned relatives they loved and were responsible for to go to New York, and both achieved "café society" status through relationships with wealthier men, though Capote's mother was born two decades earlier than the fictional Holly Golightly. Capote was also unsuccessfully sued for libel and invasion of privacy by a Manhattan resident named Bonnie Golightly who claimed that he had based Holly on her.
Publication history
Breakfast at Tiffany's first appeared in the November 1958 issue of EsquireEsquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
. Shortly afterward, a collection of the novella and three short stories by Capote was published by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
.
The collection has been reprinted several times; the novella has been included in other Capote collections.
Literary significance and reception
In "Breakfast at Sally Bowles'", Ingrid Norton of Open Letters MonthlyOpen Letters Monthly
Open Letters Monthly is an online arts and culture magazine. It was founded in 2007 by Sam Sacks, John Cotter, and Steve Donoghue. It features long-form criticism of books, films, and art exhibits as well as original artwork and poetry....
pointed out Capote's debt to Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
, one of his mentors, in creating the character of Holly Golightly: "Breakfast at Tiffany’s is in many ways Capote’s personal crystallization of [Isherwood's] Sally Bowles."
Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill
Marie Rudisill
Marie Rudisill , also known as the Fruitcake Lady, was a writer and television personality, best known as the nonagenarian woman who appeared in the "Ask the Fruitcake Lady" segments on The Tonight Show on American television. She was an aunt to novelist Truman Capote...
notes that Holly is a kindred spirit of Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, the central character of his short story "Children on Their Birthdays." She observes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness."
Capote himself acknowledged that Golightly was the favorite of his characters.
The novella's prose style prompted Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation," adding that he "would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany's".
Film
The novella was loosely adapted into the 19611961 in film
The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB...
movie Breakfast at Tiffany's starring Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
and directed by Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
. The movie was transposed to circa 1960 rather than the 1940s, the period of the novella.
Musical
Holly GolightlyBreakfast at Tiffany's (musical)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a legendary flop in Broadway musical history. The musical is based on the Truman Capote novella and 1961 film of the same name about a free spirit named Holly Golightly...
, a musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, premiered in 1966 in Boston. The initial performances were panned by the critics and despite a rewrite by Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
, it closed after only four performances.
Television
Three years after the musical adaptation, Stefanie PowersStefanie Powers
Stefanie Powers is an American actress best known for her role as Jennifer Hart in the 1980s television series Hart to Hart.-Early life:...
and Jack Kruschen
Jack Kruschen
Jack Kruschen was a Canadian-born character actor who worked primarily in American film, television and radio.-Radio:...
starred in another adaptation, Holly Golightly (1969), an unsold ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
sitcom pilot. Kruschen's role was based on Joe Bell, a major character in Capote's novella who was omitted from the film version.
Play
Playwright Samuel AdamsonSamuel Adamson
Samuel Adamson is an Australian playwright and screenwriter who has lived and worked in the UK since 1991. He was born in Adelaide and lives in London.-Career:...
adapted the novella into a play for a 2009 production at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London, directed by Sean Mathias
Sean Mathias
Sean Gerard Mathias is a British theatre director, film director, writer and actor.Mathias was born in Swansea, south Wales. He is known for directing the film, Bent, and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney...
and starring Anna Friel
Anna Friel
Anna Louise Friel is an English actress. She rose to fame in the UK as Beth Jordache on the Channel 4 soap Brookside.-Early life:...
as Holly Golightly and Joseph Cross as William Parsons.