"LISTEN: BILLY PILGRIM HAS COME UNSTUCK IN TIME": FIRST EDITION OF SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE

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. $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). With "First Printing" on copyright page. Currey, 407. Owner ink signature on half title.

A fine copy.