Signed with a Self-Portrait
Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children's Crusade
Publication: New York: Seymour Lawrence / Delacorte, 1969. First Edition.
Notes: A first edition of one of the classic novels of the 1960s, signed with a self-portrait drawing.
Vonnegut brings his dark humor to tell—"more or less"—the story of one of the worst moments of World War II, the Dresden firebombing. In the novel, the event is so traumatic that the central character, Billy Pilgrim, becomes unmoored from time and drifts through his life out of chronological order. Also there are space aliens. With the possible exception of the space aliens, Vonnegut lived through the horrors described in the book as a German prisoner of war.
"Billy Pilgrim survives the Dresden firestorm as a POW during World War II but subsequently becomes unstuck in time after being kidnapped by Tralfamadorians and caged with a pornographic film star. Thus he learns that everything is fixed and unalterable, and that one simply has to make the best of the few good times one has. A masterpiece, in which Vonnegut penetrated to the heart of the issues developed in his earlier absurdist fabulations. A key work of modern SF."—Barron, Anatomy of Wonder.
According to Pieratt and Klinkowitz's bibliography, the first printing was 10,000 copies.
xiv, 187, [7] pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing stated). A near fine copy, with a few small spots on the top edge and very minor bumping to the spine ends, in a near fine jacket with minor tanning to the paper and slight wear to the spine ends. Signed on the half-title page with a self-portrait drawing. Copies of SH5 with a self-portrait are among the most desirable of Vonnegut books.
Provenance: Joe Petro III's personal copy. Petro printed Vonnegut's fine-art silkscreens. This book is housed in a blue clamshell box with a red leather label of the sort that Petro commissioned for Vonnegut's books.
Item No: #366396
Price: $12,500