BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 30 “I Set Out Deliberately To Write A Tour-De-Force” 41FAULKNER, William. As I Lay Dying. New York, 1930. Octavo, original tan cloth, dust jacket. $11,500 First edition, very scarce first issue, of Faulkner’s “strange, hilarious, terrifying” masterpiece, in rarely found original dust jacket. On October 25, 1929—the day after the great Wall Street panic broke out—Faulkner, by his own admission, “set out deliberately to write a tour-deforce.” In the minds of countless readers, he succeeded. “As I Lay Dying is among Faulkner’s most unified and satisfying novels; it hovers among the several peaks of his achievement… This strange, hilarious, terrifying novel presents the drama of a damaged family, with each character searching for a wholeness that cannot be restored, and that probably never was” (Parini, 144, 150). Dust jacket likely supplied from another copy. Petersen A7.1a. Brodsky 75. Small bookseller ticket. Cloth with mild wear to ends of slightly toned spine; rare dust jacket exceptionally crisp with only one small closed tear to spine head. A beautiful copy. “Listen: Billy Pilgrim Has Come Unstuck In Time” 42VONNEGUT, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death. New York, 1969. Octavo, original gilt-stamped blue cloth, dust jacket. $3800 First edition of Vonnegut’s masterpiece—his “most powerful novel”—a modern classic of time travel, metaphysics and the morality, or lack thereof, of war. “During the decade of the 1960s Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. emerged as one of the most influential and provocative writers of fiction in America… Slaughterhouse-Five, perhaps Vonnegut’s most powerful novel, presents two characters who can see beneath the surface to the tragic realities of human history but make no attempt to bring about change… The central event is the destruction of Dresden by bombs and fire storm—a catastrophe that Vonnegut himself witnessed as a prisoner of war” (Vinson, 1414-15). “A masterpiece… A key work” (Anatomy of Wonder II:1204). Owner ink signature on half title. A fine copy.
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