Buy new:
-19% $12.99
FREE delivery Tuesday, May 14 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$12.99 with 19 percent savings
List Price: $15.95

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Tuesday, May 14 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 10 hrs 23 mins
In Stock
$$12.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$12.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$8.44
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Book is in good condition with average wear to covers and corners. May contain some writing. May contain former library markings. Book is in good condition with average wear to covers and corners. May contain some writing. May contain former library markings. See less
$6.99 delivery Friday, May 17
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$12.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$12.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Patricia Highsmith
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Price of Salt, or Carol Paperback – March 17, 2004

by Patricia Highsmith (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,451 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$12.99","priceAmount":12.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"12","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"KA4QAxeOjX1113PCaOq6euMvKqd3yC2gTsi3QdvMkV0NoKpUJZ7%2B4XXaPd4kZv6tC5zp%2Bmw9Yn70fItmsy2He4aGhj8q3hh%2Brxnqrncyf5PwCuSosNQpiv%2FKDp7dhcJNoZWUf3gkI5M%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$8.44","priceAmount":8.44,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"8","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"44","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"KA4QAxeOjX1113PCaOq6euMvKqd3yC2gEYPDyAFRhM0jfA3I992yEQi3ehvv6k6JxSH8c54jihguYUXTyiSqkg%2F2LxrgpjSL9T4dhnDK99aaYiSYK8yYOvy%2FtR3gG52eAWoCauwzFEEbYEW1J93WH40nvS0EnnQn5P%2FXk9taN7%2F0v5Wbtto%2Fxnh8uX%2B4nlwe","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

"A great American writer…Highsmith's writing is wicked…it puts a spell on you." ―Entertainment Weekly

Patricia Highsmith's story of romantic obsession may be one of the most important, but still largely unrecognized, novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1952 and touted as "the novel of a love that society forbids," the book soon became a cult classic.

Based on a true story plucked from Highsmith's own life, The Price of Salt (or Carol) tells the riveting drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by a gorgeous epiphany―the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to gravitate toward the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese's job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society's confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation. The Price of Salt is a brilliantly written story that may surprise Highsmith fans and will delight those discovering her work.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    March 17, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393325997
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393325997
  8. See all details
Next page
Books with Buzz
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Frequently bought together

The Price of Salt, or Carol
$12.99
Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
The Talented Mr. Ripley
$15.26
Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A document of persecuted love―perfect."
― The Independent

"About the pursuit of love, and true happiness…It has characters who laugh, and who laugh without scorn or illusion…very recognizably Highsmith, full of tremor and of threat and of her peculiar genius for anxiety."
― The Sunday Times

"Viscerally romantic."
― Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker

About the Author

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (March 17, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393325997
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393325997
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,451 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
1,451 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Translate all reviews to English
Eh
5.0 out of 5 stars Falling in Love, captured in prose. Incredible.
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
I've been listening to the Price of Salt, a literary lesbian classic. The writing is spare and emotions are masked. Therese is innocence trapped within an old soul. She knows her heart and she recognizes in Carol all that has been missing from her life.

Carol is worldly and not easy to like. All that sophistication yet she is drawn to a teenage store clerk and wannabe set designer. They couldn't make an odder couple and yet. And yet. The scenes and dialogue between these too are so vibrant, so double edged that the rest of the world they are travelling through falls away. Secondary characters like Richard and Harge seem pale and lifeless. Therese's world without Carol is a cold and grey place.

There were moments, especially in the first half of the novel when you feel like you are watching a rather dry play put on by some local actors.
Patience by the reader is rewarded with a technicolor ride and I suppose this contrast is what impressed me the most about this novel.
Much like the Wizard of Oz, Therese and her life are transformed when she recognizes and accepts who she is and who she loves. The writing is gorgeous. I had to stop listening to the novel and slow down and read the words on the page just to savour Highsmith's talent. She captures that incredible rush one feels when you fall in love for the first time.

"How was it possible to be afraid in love, Therese thought. The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle." pg. 173

And this;

" Once they came upon a little town they liked and spent the night there, without pajamas or toothbrushes, without past or future, and the night became another of those islands in time, suspended somewhere in the heart or in the memory, intact and absolute." pg 177

Big sigh. Picturing Cate Blancett and Roona Mara in the starring roles of the soon to be released Carol? Wow. Can't wait.
9 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Roger Brunyate
4.0 out of 5 stars First Love
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2010
Verified Purchase
"I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me." Many novelists have tried to capture the thrill of first love. It is, surely, the eternal subject, but also the one most likely to turn to cliché. Treat it too romantically, and you risk being sappy; too physically, and you risk losing the internal essence. So it is quite an achievement when Patricia Highsmith, writing in 1952, draws us into the heart of Therese Belivet, an aspiring stage designer in New York, in a dead-end relationship with a boyfriend, whose life is totally transformed when she meets somebody new. Highsmith beautifully captures her excitement at that first meeting, her disbelief that this could really be happening, her reluctance to put a name to her feelings, her outpouring of emotion in thoughts not spoken and letters not sent, the stabs of irrational jealousy -- all the way to eventual declaration, delirious acceptance, and the pain of the first real problems.

A common enough story. But what makes Highsmith's version special is that Therese's love is not for a man but a woman. The book was published under a pseudonym, Claire Morgan; the subject was too risqué for its time, and her regular publishers rejected it. They had had a great success with Highsmith's first novel,  STRANGERS ON A TRAIN  (which was later made into a  movie  by Alfred Hitchcock), and wanted to promote her as a suspense writer. But even Highsmith's suspense books are novels first and genre pieces second; her work has always been distinguished by its psychological penetration. So although this book apparently became a lesbian cult classic, its importance has less to do with the titillation of its subject (and certainly not with its physical side) than with Highsmith's ability to cast new light on the old subjects of love, loyalty, and self-discovery.

I have to say, though, that this leisurely book may disappoint readers looking for something more eventful. It is not, for instance, a suspense story, although there are hints that it might become one as Carol, Therese's new friend, takes her in a road trip across country, packing a revolver in her luggage, and trying to stay one step ahead of the private investigator hired by her estranged husband. The book jacket proclaims this as "the novel that inspired  LOLITA ," quoting Terry Castle in THE NEW REPUBLIC saying that "Highsmith was the first writer to mix roadside Americana, transgressive sex, and the impinging threat of a morals charge." But Highsmith is a much soberer writer than Nabokov, and what might have been transgressive then seems almost normal now. It is true that, as in most of her novels, Highsmith brings her characters to the point of questioning or even discarding their moral assumptions, but that is a common characteristic of fine fiction. So far from treating abnormal behavior, she has found a way to portray ordinary life experiences as an achingly immediate part of our moral universe.
8 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Stephanie
5.0 out of 5 stars Books
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2024
Verified Purchase
Impresión legible, buena calidad.
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Ainara
5.0 out of 5 stars Me gusto leer la versión original de Carol !
Reviewed in Mexico on June 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
Me gusto por que es más completa, que la película , con más detalles !
Y muy interesante la reseña que da la autora acerca de cómo fue surgiendo la idea de su novela .
Report
Elisabete Tome
5.0 out of 5 stars boa leitura
Reviewed in Spain on November 2, 2023
Verified Purchase
Boa oferta
Report
Elisa
5.0 out of 5 stars Ottimo
Reviewed in Italy on April 5, 2021
Verified Purchase
Consegna tempestiva, ottimo libro
Report
Allison Savereux
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it.
Reviewed in France on November 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
I was mesmerised by the author's prose. It manages to be beautiful, evocative and sensitive all at the same time. It captured my attention from the first chapter and wouldn't let go. I had tears in my eyes when I turned the last page. I highly recommend this book.
Report
RebeccaF
5.0 out of 5 stars Großartige Pionierleistung
Reviewed in Germany on September 23, 2018
Verified Purchase
Ich hatte den Film 'Carol' zweimal gesehen, bevor ich nun das Buch gelesen habe. Über Carol ist schon so viel gesagt worden, dass ich mich hier kurz fassen will.
Natürlich sind Buch und Film völlig anders als die heutigen lesbischen Romanzen. Wenn man aber berücksichtigt, dass das Buch fast 70 Jahre alt ist, handelt es sich um eine absolute Pionierleistung von Highsmith. Vor allem, dass die Hauptpersonen sich nicht umgebracht haben, in ein Camp gesteckt wurden oder ähnliches.
Ich war überrascht, dass der Film das Buch in weiten Teilen sehr genau umgesetzt hat, was oft leider nicht der Fall ist.
Das Buch trägt sehr zum besseren Verständnis des Films bei und ich kann es von daher nur empfehlen.
Schade, dass Patricia Highsmith nie wieder ein solches Buch mit lesbischen Hauptcharakteren geschrieben hat.
Report