Truman Capote

White, clean, crisp and bright true First Edition, First Printing of IN COLD BLOOD, Capote's sensational "non-fiction novel" as he called it. Capote signed the first free blank page "Truman Capote". Not a book club edition. Fine in Very Good+ jacket. Correct price and code to dustjacket (1/66). First printing stated to copyright page. Topstain, as called for. Dustjacket lightly rubbed to edges, now in mylar protective sleeve. A very sharp copy for the collector.

On November 16, 1959, the New York Times carried the following story:

Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain
A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged. The father, 48-year-old Herbert W. Clutter, was found in the basement with his son, Kenyon, 15. His wife Bonnie, 45, and a daughter, Nancy, 16, were in their beds. There were no signs of a struggle and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut. "This is apparently the case of a psychopathic killer," Sheriff Earl Robinson said...

Fascinated by this brief news item, author Truman Capote, whose book Breakfast at Tiffany's had just been published to great acclaim, traveled with his childhood friend Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) to Holcomb, Kansas, and visited the scene of the massacre. Over the course of the next few years, he became acquainted with everyone involved in the investigation and most of the residents of the small town. Rather than taking notes during interviews, Capote committed conversations to memory and immediately wrote quotes as soon as an interview ended. He claimed his memory retention for verbatim conversations had been tested at 94%.

TRUMAN CAPOTE (1924-1984) was an American writer whose stories, novels, plays and non-fiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965).

 

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