Like Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) was a Midwestern everyman steeped in the rhythms of American speech whose anger at the way things are was matched only by his love for the best that we can be. His cunningly relaxed delivery was so original, so finely calibrated, and so profound an articulation of the Sixties' spirit that many critics overlooked the moral seriousness behind the standup-comic craftsmanship.
Capturing Vonnegut in pyrotechnic mid-career, this first volume of a projected three-volume edition gathers four of his most acclaimed novels. Cat's Cradle (1963) is a...

For eight years, big game hunter and war hero Harold Ryan has been presumed dead, lost in the Amazon rainforest while hunting for diamonds. Now he's back, only to find his wife engaged to a hippy doctor and his son transformed into a pampered sissy.

Since its original publication in 1968, Welcome to the Monkey House has been one of Kurt Vonnegut s most beloved works. This special edition celebrates a true master of the short-story form by including multiple variant drafts of what would eventually be the title story. In a fascinating accompanying essay, Building the Monkey House: At Kurt Vonnegut s Writing Table, noted Vonnegut scholar Gregory D. Sumner walks readers through Vonnegut s process as the author struggles false start after false start to hit upon what would be one of his greatest stories. The result is the rare...