“ONE OF THE POSTWAR ERA’S LEADING AMERICAN WRITERS”

CAPOTE, Truman. Other Voices, Other Rooms. New York: Random House, (1948). Octavo, original beige cloth, original dust jacket. $1900.

First edition of Capote’s first novel, signed by him on the front endpaper, with the provocative and controversial Halma photograph of Capote on the rear panel of the scarce original dust jacket.

Other Voices, Other Rooms launched the career of Truman Capote, who quickly became "one of the postwar era's leading American writers" (New York Times). Published when he was only 23, Capote called this evocative, semi-autobiographical first novel "a poetic explosion in highly suppressed emotion… like the message stuffed in a bottle and thrown into the sea." The Harold Halma photograph on the rear dust jacket panel, picturing a seductively posed Capote, was described by his biographer Gerald Clarke as sparking "as much comment and controversy as the prose inside. Truman claimed that the camera had caught him off guard, but in fact he had posed himself and was responsible for both the picture and the publicity" (Capote). With "First Printing" on copyright page.

Book fine, dust jacket near-fine. A lovely signed copy.