Breakfast at Tiffany's

Holly Golightly, the original free spirit, drifts through wartime New York on charm, beauty, and an absolute refusal to belong to anyone or anything. Capote’s most famous creation, and a novella so perfectly crafted it reads like a long, wistful sigh.

Why Read This

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is the other side of Capote: where In Cold Blood is journalistic and austere, this novella is lyrical, bittersweet, and achingly romantic. Holly Golightly is one of the great characters in American fiction, a woman who has reinvented herself so completely that she has almost disappeared, and the unnamed narrator’s fascination with her mirrors the reader’s.

The novella (plus three short stories included in the standard edition) showcases Capote’s gift for compression. Every sentence carries weight. The New York he creates, bohemian, glamorous, and secretly lonely, has influenced every subsequent portrayal of the city. Forget the movie. The book is sharper, sadder, and infinitely better.

What to Expect

A short, luminous novella that can be read in a single sitting. The prose is some of the most beautiful in American fiction. Three accompanying short stories show Capote’s range. A perfect complement to the darkness of In Cold Blood.