Description

“THE HERALD OF A NEW GENRE” IN COLD BLOOD, INSCRIBED BY CAPOTE

CAPOTE, Truman. In Cold Blood. A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. New York: Random House, (1965). Octavo, original maroon cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in custom clamshell box.

First trade edition, inscribed on the half title: “For Gertrude Baker, With all good wishes, Truman Capote.”

Shortly after reading a short New York Times article about a shooting in the Midwest, a “reporter named Truman Capote traveled to Kansas to investigate the shotgun murder of a farm family. The result changed journalism forever” (Salon). “Hailed as a masterpiece,” In Cold Blood established Capote as the “herald of a new genre, ‘the non-fiction novel,’ which recognizes the convergence of fiction and fact in times of outrage, the insane surrealism of daily life” (Hart, 122; Allen, 247). Preceded only by a signed limited edition of 500 copies published the same year. A fine copy.