#Collectible #Books #Andrews #Flowers #Attic #WorthPoint
The books of V. C. Andrews, such as Flowers in the Attic, are nearly as creepy as the story of her life. Read on to learn all about the sad details of her tragic accident as a teenager, as well as today’s most sought-after vintage V. C. Andrews books.
Tragedy on the Staircase
Cleo Virginia Andrews, later known as V. C. Andrews, was born into a typical Southern household in 1923. She was the only daughter of a telephone operator mother and a machinist father. As the only girl in the family, she was doted upon and spoiled throughout her childhood.
At the same time, Andrews had an active imagination and a particular interest in fairy tales and books like Dracula. These thrilled and scared her so much that she would sleep with garlic in her bedroom to ward off potential vampires.
Life was good for many years, and Andrews had a bright future ahead of her until she turned 17, when everything changed one day at school. She sustained a tragic fall on a school stairway. One thing led to another with a bone spur, a misaligned spine, and two failed surgeries. She was put in a full-body cast, which eventually worsened her entire condition. Doctors told her family she would spend the rest of her life on crutches and in wheelchairs. Despondent and utterly dependent on her parents, she never returned to school.
Not all Chiffon and Lace
Being a typical proud Southern family during an era when having a disabled child was often something to hide, Andrew’s mother could not conceal her shame. She kept Andrews mostly confined to the family home while still dressing her in lacy chiffon dresses and coifing her hair in the latest Southern styles. Sad as this was, this allowed Andrews ample time to let her imagination run wild with her artwork and writing.
After her father passed away, her mother started bringing her velvet paintings of flowers to a local department store to sell to supplement the family income. At the same time, mom kept her even more shut in the house, with only a cousin occasionally taking her out to restaurants and shopping.
Truth be told, these years for V. C. Andrews don’t sound far from the life lived by Carrie in Stephen King’s classic horror tale. When Andrews’ cousin Pat took her out shoe shopping at Lord and Taylor when she was 41 years old, Andrews shared that she hadn’t been to a shoe store since she was 16.
Petals on the Wind, Seeds of Yesterday
It is no wonder that Andrews had both the time to imagine and a confined lifestyle to craft her first blockbuster book, Flowers in the Attic. She famously wrote the book in only two weeks. Flowers in the Attic was first published in 1979 and tells the tale of four young, beautifully blond children who get locked in their grandparents’ attic by their mother after their father perishes in a car accident. Their mother hides them to reestablish her own relationship with her father and hopefully gain an inheritance.
Fraught with themes of incest and horror, some schools and libraries quickly banned Flowers in the Attic. Despite this, the book was a hit with the young adult audience, making Andrews a rich woman and driving her to write three more books in the series: Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, and Seeds of Yesterday. Following this series, termed the Dollanganger Family Series, Andrews wrote two more series of books, starting with My Sweet Audrina and Heaven.
After she died in 1986 from breast cancer, Andrews’s estate contracted with ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman to continue publishing books under her name.
“Keyhole” Covers
Today, the most collectible V. C. Andrews books are the original ones from the Dollanganger Family series, such as a first-edition Flowers in the Attic. This book is most well known, as it was made into a 1987 film, starring Kristy Swanson and Louise Fletcher. Sadly, the movie was a bit of a bomb since director Jeffrey Bloom took over production from the original director, Wes Craven.
Original V. C. Andrews books have her signature “keyhole” covers, which are most sought after by collectors. The first-edition hardback of Flowers in the Attic had a rectangular keyhole cover, while subsequent paperbacks often had oval-shaped holes. The keyhole gives a glimpse into the full-size illustration of the book’s title just inside the front cover, images that burn into the readers’ imaginations as they read each tale.
Complete sets of the Dollanganger books sometimes sell for close to $100 on the secondary market, with collectors often preferring the classic “trashy paperback” editions over the hardback books. The original Flowers in the Attic book is particularly hard to find since it was the first in the series, while more copies of the later books, such as Petals on the Wind and If There Be Thorns, are more commonplace since more were printed.
Complete V.C. Andrews Sets
Complete sets of V. C. Andrews’s other original series are also hits with collectors. The Andrina Series started with My Sweet Andrina in 1982, and the Casteel Family Series began with Heaven in 1985. Books by her ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, are much more easily found at used bookstores and secondhand stores.
Whether you are an original fan of V.C. Andrews from the 1980s or just discovering her books now, you will likely quickly become enthralled with her classic tales of family terror. While you hopefully do not have any “flowers” in the attic of your own, if you have any first editions of V.C. Andrews books in your attic they are worth holding onto. They should increase in value over time as fans of the macabre continue to discover this beloved creepy author of the 1980s!
Amy Moyer is the proprietor of Antmuffin: Art, Antiques & Collectibles. She holds a B.A. in Visual Art from Brown University and lives in Boston.
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