Mortality and Mercy in Vienna

n.d. [1976]. Stapled wrappers with a photograph by Jim Pennington. Age-toned leaves. Unpaginated [c.24 pages]. *** “Mortality and Mercy in Vienna” was Thomas Pynchon’s second published work, appearing in Cornell University’s formal literary journal, Epoch, in Spring of 1959. Written while still in college, for some reason he did not include the story in his short fiction collection, Slow Learner (1984). This is the first stand-alone publication of this brilliant, J.D. Salinger-like story. *** This chapbook was issued with slight variations to the wrapper. Our copy is believed to be a variant of the first issue: it has the cross above the author’s name, but is lacking the cross next to the figure on the front wrapper.