Capote, Truman

Other Voices, Other Rooms

New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1948. First Edition. Hardcover. "Mr. (Truman) Capote's first novel, like his shorter tales, expresses a delicate and highly personal fusion of the familiar, the everyday, the "realistic," with the strange, the perilous, and even the ghostly. On the surface, it is the narrative- sometimes humorous, sometimes uncanny, sometimes deeply touching- of a young boy's experiences in a desolate Southern rural community during one long and lowering summer, as he moves painfully and at times terrifyingly into emotional maturity. Below and beyond the surface, Other Voices, Other Rooms is rich in poetic meanings and metaphorical intimations; it abounds in the imagery of solitude, doubt, and fear, of discovery and love. It is a work of no mere precocious talent but of assured creative mastery; it is one of the leading incidents in the emergence of a new mode in American fiction." (front flap) The first published novel by Truman Capote (1924-1984), the legendary American writer & journalist who would go on to single-handedly create the "non-fiction novel" genre with his true-crime account In Cold Blood (1965). Hardcover in unclipped first issue dust jacket (with $2.75 price printed on front flap), first edition, first printing as stated on copyright page. This volume is an American literary icon, with its then-especially controversial jacket back cover author photograph by Harold Halma, depicting a delicate-handed Capote languidly lying on a couch with a "come hither" look in his eyes. Along with its contemporaries including James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar & Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, this debut novel pioneeringly dared to introduce, or certainly imply, LGBT themes to a then-very conventional (even literary) society- in this case, as with Williams, within a Southern Gothic structure. Above all, this is a truly mesmerizing & unforgettable work of literary art. The first Capote classic, in its rarest, most highly collectible original & complete form. Book in near-fine condition with mild rubbing, browning & faint scratching to off-white cloth front, back covers & spine (with spine letters, line on spine & front cover only slightly dulled & quite intact); light wear & browning to edges & corners of same; small areas at lower cover edges, corners with loss of cloth; very faint staining & a few tiny spots to back cover; slight bending of spine toward front; mild rubbing, browning & a few short, faint scratches & spots to side & lower edges of text block; moderate rubbing & fading to grey-dyed upper edge of same. Interior very fine with only mild browning, a few tiny spots to blank paste-downs & endpapers; light browning mostly at blank margins of page leaves; tiny bumps, creases at mostly upper corners of some of same. Unrestored dust jacket relatively near-fine with mild rubbing, faint scratching & a hint of browning to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at thin edges & corners of same; several short, closed tears & tiny chips with slight loss of paper esp. at spine-edges & corners. Near Fine / Near Fine. [Item #4618]

Price: $600.00