Description
For sale: a Rare and Exceptional first mass market paperback edition, later printing of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. First Dell Paperback edition unstated, October 1971. Third Printing stated, October 1972 and a 95 cent cover price.
The exterior of the paperback edition is in Very Good condition, with clean, bright covers with three corner creases, mild surface wear, strong title on a straight spine, clean page blocks, a tight binding with no cracks, rubbed spine ends, moderate edge wear and rounded corners. The interior of the book is also in Very Good condition with the previous owner’s signature on the first free page, and no other marks, inscriptions, or signs of ownership. The inside covers and the interior pages are clean and lightly toned.
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
Smaller mass market paperback ships promptly in a secure mailer with the book wrapped in both craft paper and bubble wrap.
