A Confederate General from Big Sur.

A fine copy, signed by the author

First edition, first printing, of Brautigan's first published novel, signed by him on the title page and dated 17 June 1971. This characteristically surreal Brautigan excursion was actually quite closely based on the facts of a Beat pilgrimage to Big Sur in 1957-8 in the company of San Francisco character Price Dunn. Lee Mellon, the unforgettable central character, was based in Dunn, in whom Brautigan found his "very own Neal Cassady" (Hjortsberg, p. 137). An excellent copy.

The book was completed after Trout Fishing in America, perhaps Brautigan's "masterpiece", but Barney Rosset of Grove Press wanted to publish Confederate General first feeling it was a more "traditional"novel. Sales were not good despite some early supportive reviews, and Grove declined Brautigan's next two manuscripts, In Watermelon Sugar and The Abortion, and allowed their contract for Trout Fishing to lapse. Published by Four Seasons in 1967 that book proved to be Brautigan's breakthrough; confirming his belief that "together they represented an aesthetic order that should be published in the order in which they were written" (American Dust/Brautigan.net), with readers avidly picking up on the earlier novel.