"A MONUMENTAL HISTORY": FIRST EDITION OF AND THE BAND PLAYED ON, INSCRIBED IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION BY RANDY SHILTS
SHILTS, Randy. And the Band Played On. Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. Martin's, (1987). Thick octavo, original half green cloth, original dust jacket.
First edition of Shilts' brilliant investigative work that declares "AIDS did not just happen to America—it was allowed to happen," inscribed on the half title in the year of publication by him, "To R— D— the gutsy mother of a gusty guy. Warmly Randy Shilts, October 5, 1987 San Francisco."
And the Band Played On is "a heroic work of journalism… it is at once a history and a passionate indictment that is the book's central and often repeated thesis: 'The bitter truth was that AIDS did not just happen to America—it was allowed to happen''" (New York Times). Nominated for a National Book Award, it is a "monumental history" (Washington Post) that "rivals in power and intensity, and in the brilliance of its reporting and writing, Capote's In Cold Blood" (Boston Globe). "In 1987, on the day Shilts turned in the manuscript for And the Band Played On, he found out that he had tested positive for HIV" (New York Times). He died in 1994.
A fine copy.