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New York: Random House, 1965 [but 1966]. First Edition. First Printing. Tall, narrow quarto (30.5cm); publisher's long galley sheets (rectos), comb-bound into light blue card wrappers, with the publisher's typed label mounted to front cover; [6],247,[1]pp. Holograph date of "Jan.17" in blue grease pencil at upper right corner of front wrapper, with rubber-stamped date of August 28, 1965 on verso. The following holograph notation appears in black pen beneath the printed title on the preliminary leaf: "Gift for Wynne Wittnebel from Christopher Lehman [sic]-Haupt at Little Dix Bay British Virgin Islands on October 8, 1965." The same note appears in an identical hand on the upper rear wrapper. Covers edgeworn, creased, with some toning, light soil, and a few splash marks; occasional finger-soil to text edges and margins, with three pieces of clear tape connecting p.116 to 117, some long creases smoothed-out on p.208, with some creases straightened out at lower corners of a few terminal leaves; comb binding intact, but for a small chip at the crown; a Very Good, sound copy. Proof copy of Capote's masterfully written true crime novel, originally released as a four-part series in The New Yorker in 1965, and published to great acclaim by Random House in January, 1966. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction, an Edgar Award, and basis for the 1967 Richard Brooks film Starring Robert Blake and Scott Wilson. This copy belonged to editor and book reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (1934-2018), who in 1965 left The Dial Press and became an editor and critic at The New York Times Book Review, where from 1965-2000 he wrote over 4,000 reviews and articles. While Lehmann-Haupt never did review In Cold Blood, years later he would write a lengthy review of Music For Chameleons. He gifted the recipient this copy while the two of them were on a Caribbean cruise. The finding aid for Capote's papers at NYPL notes several drafts of the book, thermofaxed and carbon typescripts, and galleys for The New Yorker serials, though these comb-bound galleys are the earliest available version of the novel as it would be published. Produced in very small numbers (typically fewer than a dozen), and much less common than the advance copies issued by the publisher. [cf. Starosciak 11a].
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