Kurt Vonnegut Complete Stories

ABOUT COMPLETE STORIES
Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the twentieth century’s foremost imaginative geniuses. More than half of Vonnegut’s output was short fiction, and never before has the world had occasion to wrestle with it all together. Organized thematically—«War,» «Women,» «Science,» «Romance,» «Work Ethic versus Fame and Fortune,» «Behavior,» «The Band Director» (those stories featuring Lincoln High’s band director and nice guy George Hemholtz), and JFuturistic»—these ninety-eight stories were written from 1941 to 2007, and include those Vonnegut published in magazines and collected in Welcome to the Monkey House, Bagombo Snuff Box, and other books; here for the first time five previously unpublished stories; as well as a handful of others that were published online and read by few. During his lifetime Vonnegut published fewer than half of the stories he wrote, his agent telling him in 1958 upon the rejection of a particularly strong story, «Save it for the collection of your works which will be published someday when you become famous. Which may take a little time.»

Selected and introduced by longtime Vonnegut friends and scholars Dan Wakefield and Jerome Klinkowitz, Complete Stories puts Vonnegut’s great wit, humor, humanity, and artistry on full display. An extraordinary literary feast for new readers, Vonnegut fans, and scholars alike.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the few grandmasters of modern American letters. Called by the New York Times «the counterculture’s novelist,» his works guided a generation through the miasma of war and greed that was life in the U.S. in second half of the 20th century. After stints as a soldier, anthropology PhD candidate, technical writer for General Electric, and salesman at a Saab dealership, Vonnegut rose to prominence with the publication of «Cat’s Cradle» in 1963. Several modern classics, including «Slaughterhouse-Five», soon followed. Never quite embraced by the stodgier arbiters of literary taste, Vonnegut was nonetheless beloved by millions of readers throughout the world. «Given who and what I am,» he once said, «it has been presumptuous of me to write so well.» Kurt Vonnegut died in New York in 2007.