The value in a Deadeye Dick first edition is not the first printing statement, which the copyright page gives up without argument. It is everything around it. Delacorte printed Vonnegut heavily by 1982, and firsts of his tenth novel are not hard to find, so what separates one copy from another is the jacket and how well the gilt has held on blue cloth that fades. This copy is unclipped, the $14.95 price still on the front flap, which is the first thing a buyer should check and the one fault that cannot be undone.
Currey is no help on this title, and that is worth saying plainly. The revised edition carries Vonnegut through Slapstick and Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons and records how the Delacorte novels identify themselves: for Slaughterhouse-Five, "First printing so stated on copyright page"; for Breakfast of Champions, "First printing 1973 on copyright page." Deadeye Dick came out in 1982 and falls past the end of that coverage. Ahearn carries no entry for it either, though an Ahearn number circulates in dealer descriptions of the title anyway. The identification rests on the book, then, and the book is clear about it: the copyright page reads "First printing," those two words and nothing following them, the same plain formula Currey records for the earlier Delacorte novels. That settles the question with the copy in hand. It settles nothing for a buyer working from a photograph and a seller's paraphrase, which is most of the argument for buying from someone who has collated the book and said so.
The novel goes back to Midland City, the Ohio town of Breakfast of Champions, and hands it to Rudy Waltz, who fired a rifle out an attic window at twelve years old, killed a pregnant woman he never saw, and spent the rest of his life apologizing for it. Vonnegut sets off a neutron bomb over the town partway through and keeps writing in the same flat, funny register. It sits closer to Breakfast of Champions than anything else in the run, which is usually why a collector reaches for it next.
Bound in blue cloth over boards, stamped in gilt on the spine, with a facsimile of Vonnegut's signature stamped in gilt on the front board. That signature is part of the binding as issued on the first edition. It is not an autograph and this is not a signed copy. Pink topstain. The light soiling and the fading are on the boards only. The binding is tight, the corners square, the text block sound. No previous owner name, inscription, or bookplate, and the pages are clean and unmarked throughout. The original dust jacket is unclipped with the $14.95 price present on the front flap, and its only fault is minor creasing, no chips or losses. The jacket design is credited to James L. McGuire.
One thing about this book reliably gets muddled, and it is sitting on the front board. The gilt signature there was stamped on every copy of the first edition. It is not an autograph, and a description that uses the word signed without saying facsimile is doing a buyer no favors, whatever the intent. This copy is not signed and the price says so.
Nothing here rests on rarity. Copies of the first printing are on the market in quantity, and a buyer should be told that rather than sold a story. What this copy offers is a jacket nobody has taken scissors to, a binding that has not gone slack, and faults listed in full. Very good in a very good jacket is where most collectors actually buy, a step below the near fine copies that carry a premium these flaws do not support.
The value in a Deadeye Dick first edition is not the first printing statement, which the copyright page gives up without argument. It is everything around it. Delacorte printed Vonnegut heavily by 1982, and firsts of his tenth novel are not hard to find, so what separates one copy from another is the jacket and how well the gilt has held on blue cloth that fades. This copy is unclipped, the $14.95 price still on the front flap, which is the first thing a buyer should check and the one fault that cannot be undone.
Currey is no help on this title, and that is worth saying plainly. The revised edition carries Vonnegut through Slapstick and Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons and records how the Delacorte novels identify themselves: for Slaughterhouse-Five, "First printing so stated on copyright page"; for Breakfast of Champions, "First printing 1973 on copyright page." Deadeye Dick came out in 1982 and falls past the end of that coverage. Ahearn carries no entry for it either, though an Ahearn number circulates in dealer descriptions of the title anyway. The identification rests on the book, then, and the book is clear about it: the copyright page reads "First printing," those two words and nothing following them, the same plain formula Currey records for the earlier Delacorte novels. That settles the question with the copy in hand. It settles nothing for a buyer working from a photograph and a seller's paraphrase, which is most of the argument for buying from someone who has collated the book and said so.
The novel goes back to Midland City, the Ohio town of Breakfast of Champions, and hands it to Rudy Waltz, who fired a rifle out an attic window at twelve years old, killed a pregnant woman he never saw, and spent the rest of his life apologizing for it. Vonnegut sets off a neutron bomb over the town partway through and keeps writing in the same flat, funny register. It sits closer to Breakfast of Champions than anything else in the run, which is usually why a collector reaches for it next.
Bound in blue cloth over boards, stamped in gilt on the spine, with a facsimile of Vonnegut's signature stamped in gilt on the front board. That signature is part of the binding as issued on the first edition. It is not an autograph and this is not a signed copy. Pink topstain. The light soiling and the fading are on the boards only. The binding is tight, the corners square, the text block sound. No previous owner name, inscription, or bookplate, and the pages are clean and unmarked throughout. The original dust jacket is unclipped with the $14.95 price present on the front flap, and its only fault is minor creasing, no chips or losses. The jacket design is credited to James L. McGuire.
One thing about this book reliably gets muddled, and it is sitting on the front board. The gilt signature there was stamped on every copy of the first edition. It is not an autograph, and a description that uses the word signed without saying facsimile is doing a buyer no favors, whatever the intent. This copy is not signed and the price says so.
Nothing here rests on rarity. Copies of the first printing are on the market in quantity, and a buyer should be told that rather than sold a story. What this copy offers is a jacket nobody has taken scissors to, a binding that has not gone slack, and faults listed in full. Very good in a very good jacket is where most collectors actually buy, a step below the near fine copies that carry a premium these flaws do not support.
