Special Collections Department
Asa Pieratt
papers relating to
Kurt Vonnegut: A Comprehensive Bibliography
Manuscript Collection Number: 299
Accessioned: Gift of Asa Pieratt, 1987.
Extent: 5 items (1 linear ft.)
Content: Typescript, galley proofs, page proofs, and review copy.
Access: The collection is open for research.
Processed: July 1994, by Anita A. Wellner.
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Special Collections, University of Delaware Library
Newark, Delaware 19717-5267
(302) 831-2229
Table of Contents
Biographical Notes
Librarian and bibliographer Asa Pieratt was born August 30, 1938, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He received a B.A. from Kalamazoo College in 1961 and an A.M.L.S. from the University of Michigan in 1965. He also studied at Universidad de los Andes (1959), Jane Greenfield Bindery (1968-1969), and Columbia University (1969-1970).
Mr. Pieratt worked on the library staffs of numerous colleges and universities, including the University of Michigan (1962-1964); Miami-Dade Junior College (1965-1966); Bowling Green State University (1966-1967); University of New Haven, Connecticut (1967-1973); and the University of Delaware (1973-1992), from which he retired in 1992.
Pieratt co-authored, with Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: a descriptive bibliography and annotated secondary checklist (1974); Donald Barthelme: a descriptive bibliography (1978); and Kurt Vonnegut: a comprehensive bibliography. He also contributed to The Vonnegut Statement (1973).
In addition to Mr. Pieratt's interest in and collection of material related to Kurt Vonnegut, he also collects postcards and has written Postcard Pageantry: celebrations of major and minor expositions, fairs, and events in early twentieth-century America (1978).
Mr. Pieratt resides in Newark, Delaware.
American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born on November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Between 1940 and 1947, Vonnegut attended classes at several universities, including Cornell University (1940-1942), Carnegie Institute of Technology (1943), and the University of Chicago (1945-1947). He received a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago in 1971.
During World War II, Vonnegut was an infantryman in the U.S. Army, who was subsequently captured and held as a prisoner of war in Dresden. He survived the February 13, 1945 firebombing of Dresden by the Allied forces, which took the lives of 135,000 German civilians. The story of Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, is based on Vonnegut's Dresden experience.
Since his first novel, Player Piano, published by Scribner in 1952, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has written twelve novels, including The Sirens of Titan (1959), Mother Night (1962), Cat's Cradle (1963), God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965), Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Slapstick (1976), Jailbird (1979), Dead-Eye Dick (1982), Galapagos (1985), Bluebeard (1987), and Hocus Pocus (1990).
In addition to his novels, Vonnegut has written plays, including Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1960) and Between Time and Timbutktu (1972); short fiction, collected in Canary in a Cathouse (1961) and Welcome to the Monkey House (1968); as well as essays, juvenile literature, and autobiographies. His two autobiographical "collages" (his subtitle for each) are titled Palm Sunday (1981) and Fates Worse than Death (1991).
A number of Vonnegut's novels have been produced as plays or films; of these, the most widely known is Universal's 1972 film version of Slaughterhouse Five.
In the 1990s Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. continues to write and to lecture at universities, churches, and national conferences. He is an outspoken opponent of censorship and war.
Sources:
Locher, Frances Carol (ed.) Contemporary Authors. Volumes 77-80. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1979. pp. 423-424.May, Hal and Deborah A. Straub. Contemporary Authors. New Revisions Series, Volume 25. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1989. pp. 464-474.
Scope and Content Note
Co-edited with Jerome Klinkowitz and Julie Huffman-Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut updates and expands Pieratt's and Klinkowitz's earlier Vonnegut bibliography, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: a descriptive bibliography and annotated secondary checklist (Archon Books, 1974).
The manuscripts reflect the editorial work of the authors, as well as the constant additions and corrections necessary in compiling bibliographies of living authors such as Kurt Vonnegut.
The collection is arranged in chronological order.
Related collections:
Ms 99 Screenplay for Kurt Vonnegut's SlapstickMs 99 Photocopy of proofs for Vonnegut's Jailbird
Ms 99 Photocopy of proofs for Vonnegut's Palm Sunday
Ms 259 Seymour Lawrence Publishing Files Related to Kurt Vonnegut
Ms 300 Jerome Klinkowitz Papers Relating to Kurt Vonnegut
Ms 301 Asa Pieratt Collection of Kurt Vonnegut Ephemera
Contents List
1 Series I. Setting copy typescript, [n.d.]
Typescript with autograph corrections, editor's and printer's notations,
and a few photocopied pages.
F1 Pages 1-150.
F2 Pages 151-340.
F3 Pages 341-492.
2 Series II. Master galley proofs (stage one), 1986: October 9
With autograph corrections by the authors, and notations by the editor and
printer. Stamped "Master Proofs."
F4 Pages 1-150.
F5 Pages 151-239.
Series III. Review copy, [1986]
Photocopy of the stage one master galley proofs sent out as a review copy.
F6 Review copy, [1986]
Series IV. Master page proofs (stage two), [1987]
With autograph corrections and notations by the editor and printer.
F7 Pages I-xxvi, 1-289.
3 Series V. Mock-up copy, [1987]
Camera-ready text, with a few autograph printer's notations. Incorporates
corrections made to the galley and page proofs.
F8 Pages I-iii, vi-xxvi, 1-75
F9 Pages 76-175
F10 Pages 176-289
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