The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49

Cover of first edition
Author	Thomas Pynchon
Language	English
Genre	Postmodern novel, paranoid fiction
Published	April 27, 1966 (1966-04-27) (J. B. Lippincott & Co.)
Publication place	United States
Pages	183

The Crying of Lot 49 is a novella by the American author Thomas Pynchon. It was published on April 27, 1966, by J. B. Lippincott & Co.^[1] The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies. One of these companies, Thurn and Taxis, actually existed, operating from 1490–1990, and was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's writing, The Crying of Lot 49 is often described as postmodernist literature. Time included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005".^[2]