344

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007)

Author's Album Containing Retained Copies of Letters.

January 1951-June 1956.
Folio format Elbe file binder containing an alphabetized handwritten table with entries in Vonnegut's hand in pencil; approximately 369 typed carbons of letters written by Vonnegut and sent to prospective publishers, friends, family, associates and other contacts; with carbons of a few handwritten letters; a few letters with pencil notes or sketches added, sometimes a carbon of his signature; content is quite interesting, including Vonnegut's notes on editing, autobiographical notes; prospective work and publishing opportunities; proposals for technical writing projects; a request to the University of Chicago for his college transcript; job applications; personal letters, and much more; letters written from his address on Scudder Lane in West Barnstable, Massachusetts; Osterville, MA; Provincetown, MA; and Alplaus, NY; some letters without originating address; each sheet a standard 8 1/2 x 11 in., all held together in a clothbound commercial binder; several of Vonnegut's distinctive doodles of people are sketched in his hand inside the front and back boards of the binder, on the covers of the alphabetical index, and elsewhere; 9 x 11 in.

This collection of retained correspondence was given by Vonnegut to a friend from Cape Cod. The letters begin the moment Vonnegut quit his full-time job at General Electric as a technical writer. The plan was to earn a living as a freelance writer, a shocking plan. His first novel, Player Piano, came out during this period, and Vonnegut lists 24 letters in his index that relate to this work. They begin at letter 84, in which Vonnegut thanks his Scribner's editor Harry Brague for the opportunity and lists several editorial notes including: "The book would be better if it ended with Chapter XXXVI. There was a strong feeling before, you'll remember, for summing up beyond the revolution. However, in the revision process I think I strengthened XXXVI and the build-up to it enough to make the climax at the end of XXXVI adequate and neat. Three cheers for pessimism." In letter 100, he provides feedback to Brague on the proof-read galleys of the novel. Years later, in June of 1954, after Player Piano showed itself to be something of a disappointment he writes to Julien Dedman at Scribner's, "Gee, what a swell boost your letter was. Three days ago, Harry Brague wrote to say Player Piano was being junked. Now you make it easy for me to rationalize the disaster in terms of pearls before swine."

We see Vonnegut in these letters very busy writing short stories and doing his best to get gigs writing for television and to land technical writing assignments. In one of the letters, to Collier's editor Knox Burger (letter 210), he lists 26 stories he's sold, saying, "It makes me feel kind of naked to do this." As Vonnegut's correspondence in this critical period was scattered to the winds, an assemblage of his outgoing epistolary output from this time (as retained by him), provides key professional and personal details about his life and work more than a decade before the success of Slaughterhouse Five.

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