FIRST EDITION OF SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, SIGNED 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 cloth clamshell box.
First edition of Vonnegut's "most powerful novel," boldly signed on the half title by him with his full-page self-portrait sketch and his characteristic flourish.
"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 bright interior and only faintest foxing to original cloth, dust jacket with lightest rubbing to extremities and toning. Very desirable inscribed and with a self-portrait.