Univ. Press May Have Bestseller

The newest book by author and Princeton University may be headed for bestseller status--and may earn a tidy profit for Harvard University Press in the process.

Demand for Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination is so great that the press has already printed 25,000 copies, according to press Editor-in-Chief Aida Donald.

Morrison, who wrote the critically acclaimed novel Beloved, gave last year's William E. Massey lectures on the history of American civilization at Harvard. Those lectures, in addition to material she has used in her teaching at Princeton, make up the substance of the book.

Playing in the Dark is an unusually high profile book for the press, which usually produces only 1500 copies of its books. But Harvard University Press holds the publishing rights to lecture series given on campus.

"When you accept the lectures series, you accept the publication by the press," Donald said.

Playing in the Dark, with its black-and-white cover photograph of Morrison, has a glossy, high profile look that most University publications do not have, Donald said.

Similar books, such as the upcoming press publication of Gore Vidal's recent lecture, Screening History, are a financial boon to the usually lowprofit University press.

One Writer's Beginnings, an adaptation of the first Massey lectures given by Eudora Welty, became a huge hit, selling 135,000 copies, Donald said. "These books significantly help [our ledger], yes," Donald said.