[Item #4744] In Cold Blood. Truman Capote.
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood

New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1965. First Edition. Hardcover. "On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged for the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas. In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece." (front flap) The classic breakthrough work in which author Truman Capote (1924-1984) single-handedly invented & perfected the genre of the "non-fiction novel." Beautifully written, ingeniously structured, ultimately compelling, disturbing & suspenseful- even though we already know the fate of the murderers & their victims (see above). This is the masterpiece (indeed) of journalism raised to a high art that catapulted Capote to the zenith of fame & fortune which all too quickly began to curdle into an agonized, protracted decline & demise. This canonical "...True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences" (front flap, title page) was the basis for the acclaimed (& as unsettling as its source) 1967 film starring Scott Wilson as Hickock & Robert Blake as Smith. Hardcover in unclipped first-issue dust jacket (with $5.95 price & "1/66" printed on front flap, references to publisher's American College Dictionary & Modern Library series on rear flap), first (trade) edition, first printing as stated on copyright page (copyrighted 1965 thereon), published simultaneously with a limited numbered & signed edition. A high mark of twentieth-century American literature, an essential Capote collectible in its rarest original trade version. See also our item No.s 4618, 4708. Book in very fine condition with the slightest wear & fading at thin edges & corners of burgundy-cloth front, back covers & spine (with gold & silver-gilt letters, graphics on spine & front cover completely bright & intact); a touch of rubbing, browning to side & lower edges of text block (the former untrimmed as issued); very slight fading & a few tiny spots, faint scratches to black-dyed upper edge of same. Interior very fine with only tiny bumps at corners of a few page leaves; otherwise substantially mint. Dust jacket fine with very light rubbing, mostly mild browning (becoming moderate at margins & edges of front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; a few very short, mostly closed tears at cover-edges, corners & esp. spine-edges, corners with very slight loss of paper, surface. Very Fine / Fine. [Item #4744]

Price: $600.00