Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death.

VONNEGUT, Kurt.

Item Number: 136984

New York: Delacorte Press, 1969.

First edition of Vonnegut’s masterpiece. Octavo, original blue cloth. Boldly signed by the author on the half-title page in a contemporary hand, “Peace Kurt Vonnegut Jr.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Paul Bacon. Housed in a custom clamshell box. An exceptional example.

"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). "Kurt Vonnegut knows all the tricks of the writing game. So he has not even tried to describe the bombing. Instead he has written around it in a highly imaginative, often funny, nearly psychedelic story. The story is sandwiched between an autobiographical introduction and epilogue" (The New York Times). It is the basis for the 1972 film bearing the same name. The screenplay written by Stephen Geller and directed by George Roy Hill. It stars Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, and Valerie Perrine, and features Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Holly Near, and Perry King.