Capote, Truman | Signed by both the author and Tennessee Williams

Capote, Truman

Music for Chameleons. New York: Random House, 1980

8vo (218 x 136 mm). Signed by the author on the title-page, signed by Tennessee Williams on the dedication page. Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver, upper board stamped in silver, in the original purple printed dust-jacket with photographic portrait of Capote on the back panel; price-clipped, tiny nick to head of spine panel, inside flaps just slightly toned at edges.

First trade edition, signed by both the author and the dedicatee. Capote and Williams shared much in common—both were queer writers from the South who changed their names, and both were from families similarly plagued by alcohol abuse, which shaped their lives. The two began a friendship in 1940, when Capote was only 16 and Williams was 29, which continued until their deaths. Though intimate, it was periodically marked by intense feuds. Capote dedicated Music for Chameleons, his last collection published before his death, to Williams—a statement of his admiration and his debt to the playwright, who was in a particularly lonely and despairing period at the end of his life. Williams would die only three years later from a barbiturate overdose, and Capote would die from liver disease the following year.