THE EDIBLE WOMAN is the first published novel by Margaret Atwood in 1969. Rich in metaphor, deliciously comic, and glittering with insight, the story chronicles the fantastic and dramatic ego disintegration of Marian McAlprin, who seems at first to be a perfectly conventional young woman, with friends, a successful and attractive man in her life, and a reasonably good job working for a market research company. Everything in her life seems to fly out of control with her engagement, just as Marian seems ready to fulfill "every woman's" dream of trading in her troublesome job for marriage and a new life at home with children. The manner of her collapse and the startling ending make for often hilarious reading.

This brilliant and witty early work by one of the most admired novelist of our time contains the hallmark themes in the body of work that inspired Vogue magazine to call Atwood "one of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century."