(price-clipped) [book itself has no discernible wear; jacket quite faded at spine (one of the chronic problems with this book), with a small black smudge at the upper left corner of the rear panel and a tiny razor-cut on the spine] "The first and most terrifying monster in English literature tells his own side (the true side) of the Beowulf story in this revisionist novel . . . comic, grotesque, at times very sad."