The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Harper Collins (HarperSanFrancisco), San Francisco, 1993. First Edition. First US printing with complete number line from 1- 10 and year line starting at 93. ISBN 10: 006-250217-4. Hardcover with dust jacket. DUST JACKET: Light edge wear. Light bumping to the bottom of the spine. No unusual folds or creases. Is price-clipped. No tears. No other missing pieces. . BOOK: Bright gilt lettering on the spine. Maybe very light cover edge wear. Light bumping to the edge of page 41 due to that page sticking out slightly from the page block in publication. Otherwise, no previous owner markings. No tears, folds or creases to pages. Not ex-library, not remaindered and not a facsimile reprint. For sale by Jon Wobber, bookseller since 1978. LB21a

    "The Alchemist (Portuguese: O Alquimista) is a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho which was first published in 1988. Originally written in Portuguese, it became a widely translated international bestseller. The story follows Santiago, a shepherd boy, in his journey across North Africa to the Egyptian pyramids after he dreams of finding treasure there. It has since been translated into more than 65 languages and has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.
     The plot of the novel builds on the international folktale type classified as no. 1645 ("The Treasure at Home") in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index of folktales: "A man dreams that if he goes to a distant city he will find treasure on a certain bridge. Finding no treasure, he tells his dream to a man who says that he too has dreamed of treasure at certain place. He describes the place, which is the first man's home. When the latter returns home he finds the treasure."[3] The earliest known version of this tale type is a poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, and a variant of the tale appears in the One Thousand and One Nights collection of Arabic folktales.[4]
      The book's main theme is about finding one's destiny, although according to The New York Times, The Alchemist is "more self-help than literature".[5] The advice given to Santiago that "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe will conspire so that your wish comes true" is the core of the novel's thinking.[6] Coelho originally wrote The Alchemist in only two weeks, explaining later that he was able to work at this pace because the story was "already written in [his] soul."[7]" - wikipedia