Kurt Vonnegut's Album of Copies of Letters: Rare Book of the Week

This week's Rare Book of the Week is an album of letters written by Kurt Vonnegut which he kept carbon copies of and which comes up for auction at Swann Galleries on October 23.

Written between January 1951 and June 1956, the 369 typed carbons of letters are kept in an Elbe file binder with an alphabetized handwritten table with entries in Vonnegut's hand in pencil. The letters were written by Vonnegut and sent to publishers, friends, family, and other contacts

They include Vonnegut's notes on editing, autobiographical notes, prospective work and publishing opportunities, proposals for writing projects, job applications, and personal letters, as well as several of his distinctive doodles of people.

This collection was given by Vonnegut to a friend from Cape Cod and start when Vonnegut quit his full-time job at General Electric as a technical writer, planning to earn a living as a freelance writer. His first novel, Player Piano, came out during this period, and Vonnegut lists 24 letters in the index related to the work. Among them is 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."

The estimate is $8,000 - $10,000.