How you can buy Kurt Vonnegut World War II scrapbook that inspired 'Slaughterhouse-Five'

For many, "Slaughterhouse-Five" is a masterpiece, and the greatest literary work of Indianapolis-born author and icon Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 

Now, you can own Vonnegut's World War II scrapbook that inspired that masterpiece. But only if you're able to outbid the other Vonnegut die-hards and history buffs who are expected to shell out at least six figures for the chance to take home a piece of history.

Christie's Auction House has posted a listing for the 84-page scrapbook kept by Vonnegut's family in 1944 and 1945. The book includes 22  signed letters to Vonnegut's family, photographs, telegrams and more.

It has an estimated price of between $150,000 and $200,000, according to the listing. 

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Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis on Nov. 11, 1922. He wrote for the school paper as a student at Shortridge High School, an served as managing editor of The Cornell Daily Sun as a chemistry major at Cornell University.

But in January 1943, Vonnegut enlisted in the United States Army.

"He was assigned to study mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tennessee before deployment to Europe with the 106th Infantry Division in late 1944," said the Christie's listing. "During the Battle of the Bulge that December he was captured and held as a Prisoner of War in Dresden, where he famously survived the Allied bombing in the meat locker of a slaughterhouse.

"It was an experience that would inform the writing of his best-known and most influential work, the semi-autobiographical novel 'Slaughterhouse-Five.'"

The scrapbook, which is green cloth with 106th Infantry Division Golden Lion insignia mounted to the upper cover, was kept by his sister, Alice, and his father, Kurt Vonnegut Sr.

According to Christie's, the book opens with a portrait of a young Vonnegut in uniform and quickly follows with newspaper clippings from January 1945.

It also includes a telegram to Kurt Vonnegut Sr. that reads, “The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son Private First Class Kurt Vonnegut Jr Has been reported Missing in Action.” The family received that correspondence on Jan. 11, 1945.

But the scrapbook has a number of letters from Vonnegut before his capture and that troubling news. On Oct. 1, 1944, he wrote, "Today I am a world citizen. […] This adventure began a great deal more quickly than any of us had expected. How violent it will be I don't know." On Nov. 5, 1944, he writes, "Methinks I'm in a safe and static situation."

Christie's notes that Vonnegut's "trademark satire and dry humor" are present even in the most dire situations. 

On Jan. 3, 1945, he writes, “It’s been one helluva holiday season for all of us. The worst of all my somewhat sensational experiences just undergone in the course of battle and capture is not being able to tell you wonderfully affectionate people not to worry – to tell you that I came through the whole god-awful slaughter without a scratch.”

According to Christie's, his letter on May 21, 1945, begins with a lighthearted description of events before turning grim.

"This letter started as a huge joke," he writes. "There's no sense in going through with it. There's nothing funny in watching friends starve to death or in carrying body after body out of inadequate air-raid shelters to mass kerosene funeral pyres – and that is what I've done these past six months."

One of his final letters brings the good news of his survival and liberation.

"It is a source of great delight to be able to announce that you will shortly receive a splendid relic of World War II with which you may decorate your hearth – namely, me in an excellent state of preservation. You may well say 'Huzzzah!' for this prodigal princeling has survived," he writes. "It will soon be your maudlin duty to set goodies before me that I may once more be my merry, curly-topped, little-ol butterball self."

Vonnegut returned home in the summer of 1945 and married soon after.

After the war, he worked at the Chicago City News Bureau and then in public relations for General Electric. "Player Piano," Vonnegut's first novel, was published in 1952, but was dismissed by critics. His work reached a large audience with "Cat's Cradle" in 1963.

By the late 1960s, Vonnegut had emerged as one of the most influential writers of his generation.

Kurt Vonnegut died April 11, 2007, after a fall at his New York home. He was 84.

Call IndyStar reporter Justin L. Mack at 317-444-6138. Follow him on Twitter: @justinlmack