FIRST EDITION OF SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, INSCRIBED BY VONNEGUT WITH HIS SELF-PORTRAIT SKETCH
VONNEGUT, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death. (New York): Delacorte, (1969). Octavo, original gilt-stamped blue cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
First edition of Vonnegut’s “most powerful novel,” boldly inscribed on the half title by him: "For Joey Wolff—Kurt Vonnegut, May 8 1994," with his full-page self-portrait sketch and his characteristic embellishments.
"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). With "First Printing" on copyright page. Currey, 407.
Book with faint dampstain along bottom edge of cloth, dust jacket with mild toning to extremities. A nearly fine copy, inscribed and with an exceptional self-portrait.