Breakfast at Tiffany's
The novella itself, about a hundred and twenty pages. Holly Golightly in wartime New York, remembered by the neighbour she called Fred.
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Truman Capote
Breakfast at Tiffany's
A young woman living on charm and other people's money in wartime Manhattan, remembered by the neighbour she left behind.
- 1958
- 179
- Wry
- Melancholy
- voice-driven
- funny
- lyrical
- intimate
About Truman Capote
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeRandom House published Breakfast at Tiffany's in October 1958, and the volume is not only the novella.[1] It prints a short novel and three stories: "House of Flowers", "A Diamond Guitar" and "A Christmas Memory".[2] The novella is narrated by an unnamed young writer looking back at 1943, when Holly Golightly lived in the flat below his in a brownstone in the East Seventies. Holly is nineteen, calls everybody darling, was born Lulamae Barnes in Texas, and lives on cash handed to her by men in restaurants. The story is about what happens to a person who has made herself impossible to keep.
The story, in more detail
The frame is the first thing to notice. A narrator who is now older returns to the neighbourhood, hears that something has turned up in a bar, and starts remembering. The whole novella is therefore told at a distance of years, by a man who has not got over her.[1] Holly never narrates. Everything a reader knows about her arrives through somebody who loved her and was not chosen.
Holly calls the narrator Fred, which is not his name. Fred is her brother, in the army, and the substitution is the clearest single thing in the book: she has renamed the man next door after the one person she loves. He lets her do it. Nobody in the novella ever gives him a name of his own, and Capote never supplies one.
What Holly does for money is left exact and unglamorous. She is paid a hundred dollars a week to visit a gangster called Sally Tomato in prison, she is given cash in fifties for the powder room, and she is looking hard for a rich husband. Capote called her an American geisha rather than a prostitute, which is a distinction the novella makes carefully and the 1961 film drops.
The three stories at the back of the volume are not filler, and one of them is now better known than most of Capote's novels. "A Christmas Memory" is a short account of a boy and the elderly cousin who is his only friend making fruitcakes in an Alabama winter, and it begins with the plainest sentence he ever wrote: imagine a morning in late November.[1] The Saturday Review called it one of the most moving stories in the language, and Capote's publisher still quotes that verdict.[2]
The full plot
An unnamed young writer takes a cheap flat in a brownstone in the East Seventies in New York in 1943. The woman in the flat below is Holly Golightly, nineteen years old, who loses her keys nightly and rings his bell instead.
Holly lives on men. She is taken to dinner, given cash, and courted by a Brazilian diplomat called José Ybarra-Jaegar, whom she intends to marry. She is also paid a hundred dollars a week to visit a gangster, Sally Tomato, in prison and carry messages she says she does not understand.
Two things break the arrangement. A horse-faced man turns up from Texas and turns out to be Doc Golightly, who married her when she was a child called Lulamae Barnes and wants her home. And her brother Fred, the person she loves, is killed in the war.
Holly is arrested when Sally Tomato's operation is exposed. The men who fed her disappear, José writes to end it, and she is left with a court date and no money.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Holly skips bail and leaves for Brazil anyway. On the way to the airport she puts the cat out of the car in Spanish Harlem, insisting they never belonged to each other, and then breaks down and tries to go back for it. The narrator promises to find it.
He does, months later, sitting in a warm window in a good street with a name and a home. Holly is never found. The last news of her is a postcard from Africa and a rumour years later, and the narrator is still asking after her when the book ends.
Themes and analysis
A narrator with no name and no chance
The novella opens on a man revisiting the street where he once lived. The first sentence tells you what kind of book this will be: he is always drawn back to places where he has lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods. Nothing about Holly Golightly yet, and no plot. The book begins with the habit of return, which is the only thing the narrator does in the present tense.
Keeping him nameless does two jobs at once. It makes him a witness rather than a rival, so a reader watches Holly without having to weigh a competing story. And it leaves Holly's nickname for him standing as the only name he has in the book. Being called Fred for two hundred pages is a small, constant humiliation, and he never once objects to it. Capote gives the reader the whole of the narrator's feeling and none of his biography.
The cat, the card and the two things Holly will not own
Holly's flat is barely furnished, her suitcases stay half packed, and her letter box carries a card reading Miss Holiday Golightly, Travelling. A printed card is a permanent object announcing that its owner is not staying. Capote lets that contradiction sit on the front door of the building for the whole novella without commenting on it.
The cat is the other one. Holly keeps a cat and refuses to name it, on the grounds that neither of them belongs to the other and a name would be a claim. What she does with the cat at the end of the story is the test of everything she has said about herself, and it is the one moment where her theory of her own life visibly fails her. The film keeps the cat and throws away the argument.
Holly Golightly and Audrey Hepburn are not the same person
The 1961 film is why most people know the title, and it changes the two things that matter. Blake Edwards moved the story from wartime 1943 to the present day of 1961, which removes the brother in the army and with him the reason Holly calls the narrator Fred. And the film gives the narrator and Holly each other at the end.
In the novella nobody gets Holly. She is arrested when Sally Tomato's business is exposed, the Brazilian diplomat José Ybarra-Jaegar drops her, and she leaves the country anyway. The narrator is left asking after her for years. Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part and got Audrey Hepburn, and the casting fixed in the public mind a Holly who is charming rather than frightening. Readers who come to the book from the film are usually surprised by how young, how broke and how hard she is.
How the novella nearly did not appear
Harper's Bazaar bought the novella first and then would not print it. Executives at the Hearst Corporation objected to the language and the subject, and there was concern about the reaction of Tiffany and Company, an advertiser whose name is in the title. Capote took it back and sold it to Esquire instead, which ran it in the November 1958 issue, the same autumn Random House published the book.
The episode is worth knowing because of what the objection was about. Nothing in the novella is explicit by later standards. What unsettled the magazine was a young woman who takes money from men, is not punished for it, and is not sorry. Capote's refusal to moralise about Holly is the reason a fashion magazine backed out, and it is also the reason the book still reads as modern.
Quotes from Breakfast at Tiffany's
I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.
Imagine a morning in late November.
Why we recommend it
One of the great first-person voices
Holly Golightly talks for a hundred and twenty pages and never once explains herself. The novella's method is to let her be charming and let the reader work out what the charm is for.
Not the film
Wartime, not 1961. A nineteen-year-old on the run from a marriage in Texas, not a New York sophisticate. And an ending in which nobody gets her.
Four books for the price of one
The volume carries three stories as well, including "A Christmas Memory", which is now read far more widely than the novella and is four thousand words long.
Capote at the hinge of his career
Published in 1958, between the Southern novels and the Kansas reporting. The plain sentences of In Cold Blood are already audible in the narrator's voice.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Holly Golightly
Born Lulamae Barnes in Texas, nineteen in 1943, and travelling according to the card on her letter box. She lives on money given to her by men and is looking for a rich husband.
The narrator
A young writer in the flat above Holly's, never named in the book. Holly calls him Fred, after her brother, and he never asks her to stop.
Fred
Holly's brother, serving in the army and barely present in the book. His death is the event that breaks her, and his name is what she calls the narrator.
Doc Golightly
A horse doctor from Texas who married Lulamae Barnes when she was a child and comes to New York to fetch her back.
Sally Tomato
A gangster in Sing Sing whom Holly visits weekly for a hundred dollars a week, carrying messages she claims not to understand.
José Ybarra-Jaegar
A Brazilian diplomat, the rich husband Holly means to marry. He drops her by letter as soon as she is arrested.
The cat
Holly's cat, which she refuses to name because she says neither of them belongs to the other. What she does with it at the end is the book's real ending.
Bring it to book club
- Holly renames the narrator after her brother. What does he get out of letting her?
- Capote called Holly an American geisha rather than a prostitute. Does the novella earn the distinction?
- The card on the letter box says Travelling. Is Holly free, or is she running?
- Why does Capote leave the narrator unnamed when he names everybody else, down to the cat's absence of a name?
- If you saw the film first, what did the book take away from you?
Inside the book
House of Flowers
A young woman leaves a brothel in Port-au-Prince to marry a man from the hills, and finds out what she has agreed to. Capote turned it into a Broadway musical with the composer Harold Arlen in 1954.
A Diamond Guitar
Two convicts in a southern prison farm, one old and settled, one young with a guitar set with glass stones. A story about what hope does to a man who had stopped having any.
A Christmas Memory
A boy and his elderly cousin make thirty fruitcakes and send them to strangers. Written in 1956 and now the most widely read thing Capote produced, printed on its own many times since.
Timeline
1956
"A Christmas Memory" is written and published, two years before it is collected at the back of this volume.
1958
Harper's Bazaar buys the novella and then declines to print it, over the language, the subject, and the reaction expected from Tiffany and Company.
1958
Esquire publishes the novella in its November issue after buying it from Capote for more than Harper's Bazaar had paid.
1958
Random House publishes the book in October, at 179 pages, as a short novel and three stories.
1961
Blake Edwards's film appears with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, moving the story to the present day and giving it a happy ending. Capote had wanted Marilyn Monroe.
1993
Vintage issues the paperback, catalogued as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories, which becomes the standard American text.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Random House
- 1958
- Paperback
- Vintage Books
- 1993
- 9780679745655
Paperback
- Paperback
- Penguin Modern Classics
Reader reviews
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Read our takeBreakfast at Tiffany's: frequently asked questions
What is in the book Breakfast at Tiffany's?
A short novel and three stories. The novella runs to about a hundred and twenty pages, and it is followed by "House of Flowers", "A Diamond Guitar" and "A Christmas Memory". Random House published the four together in October 1958, and the Vintage paperback keeps them together.
How is the book different from the 1961 film?
In three large ways. The novella is set in 1943 and the film in 1961, so the brother serving in the army disappears along with the reason Holly calls the narrator Fred. The novella's narrator is a nameless observer who never gets Holly, while the film pairs them off. And the book's Holly is nineteen, broke and much harder than Audrey Hepburn plays her.
What is Holly Golightly's real name?
Lulamae Barnes. She was born in Texas and married a horse doctor called Doc Golightly as a child, then left and remade herself in New York. He turns up in the novella to take her home.
Who is the narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany's?
A young writer who lives in the flat above Holly's and is never named. Holly calls him Fred because he reminds her of her brother, and that nickname is the only name he has in the book.
Is Holly Golightly a prostitute?
The novella is careful not to say so, and Capote described her as an American geisha rather than a prostitute. She is taken to dinner, given cash for the powder room, paid to visit a gangster in prison, and hunting a rich husband. The book states all of that plainly and declines to pass judgement.
Why did Harper's Bazaar refuse to publish it?
Harper's Bazaar had bought the novella for a summer issue in 1958, but executives at the Hearst Corporation objected to the language and the subject matter, and there was concern about how Tiffany and Company would react. Capote sold it to Esquire, which ran it that November.
Which edition should I buy?
The Vintage paperback, catalogued as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories, gives you all four pieces. Check the contents page on British printings, because Penguin has issued the novella both with and without the stories.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Breakfast at Tiffany's, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1abcTruman Capote — Open Library catalogue and edition records
WebsiteOpen LibraryUsed forCatalogue and edition records: the Random House first edition of October 1958 at 179 pages and LCCN 58010956, the first edition table of contents, the Vintage edition at LCCN 93010163, and the recorded opening sentences of the novella and of "A Christmas Memory".
3Capote: A Biography
BiographySimon and Schuster, New York, 1988Used forGerald Clarke's biography, the standard account of Harper's Bazaar dropping the novella, the sale to Esquire, and the casting of the film.
4Truman Capote Is Dead at 59; Novelist of Style and Clarity
PeriodicalThe New York Times, 26 August 1984, Section 1, Page 1, 1984Used forAlbin Krebs's obituary, for the place of the novella in Capote's output and for the magazines he was writing for in the 1950s.
5Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career
BiographyDoubleday, New York, 1997Used forGeorge Plimpton's oral biography, which collects the competing claims of the New York women who believed they were Holly Golightly.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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