A Handful of Darkness
First issue, 1955
A Handful of Darkness (1955) is Philip K. Dick's first hardcover book publication, issued by Rich & Cowan in London. It was his first appearance in boards at a time when American publishers had placed him exclusively in paperback originals. The thirteen stories collected here, drawn from his prolific early 1950s output in Galaxy and If, introduce for the first time in book form many of the themes about perception and reality that would define his career. This is the first issue of the first edition, identified by the absence of World of Chance on the back panel of the dust jacket. The second issue adds that advertisement. Copies in the original dust jacket are scarce in any condition.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Issue. Octavo, dark blue paper boards stamped in silver on spine. London: Rich & Cowan, 1955. Levack 21a. Wintz & Hyde COL1.2. #10886.
Fine copy in nearly fine dust jacket with a short closed tear at crown of spine and trivial wear to extremities. A lovely copy.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Issue. Octavo, dark blue paper boards stamped in silver on spine. London: Rich & Cowan, 1955. Levack 21a. Wintz & Hyde COL1.2. #10886.
Fine copy in nearly fine dust jacket with a short closed tear at crown of spine and trivial wear to extremities. A lovely copy.
Additional Details
The thirteen stories gathered in A Handful of Darkness were written between 1952 and 1954, during a period of extraordinary productivity in which Dick was placing work regularly in Galaxy, If, and the other leading science fiction magazines of the early 1950s. Rich & Cowan's 1955 London publication of the collection was his first hardcover appearance, at a time when his American publishers regarded him strictly as a paperback writer.
Two stories in the collection have become among his most widely anthologized, and both have been adapted. "Colony" follows a survey team on an apparently harmless alien planet that discovers that the objects around them are hostile mimics, killing by taking the form of everyday items. A microscope tries to strangle its user. A towel attacks in the shower. The horror is grounded in the sudden wrongness of familiar things. "Impostor" pushes further into the territory Dick would keep returning to. The story centers around a man who is accused of being a robot bomb and is unable to prove he is human, even to himself. The question of whether a being indistinguishable from a person is a person would later surface in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and many other works.
The other stories range considerably. "The Turning Wheel" imagines a future Buddhist theocracy in which reincarnation records determine social caste, a dystopian religious hierarchy enforced through bureaucratic machinery. "Progeny" examines parental anxiety and the creeping mechanization of childhood, following a father who returns from an extended space voyage to find his son has been raised by machines and socialized away from him. "Upon the Dull Earth" is among the darkest pieces in the collection, following a young woman whose attempt to commune with angelic forces goes catastrophically wrong in ways that cannot be undone.
Even in these early stories, the preoccupations of Dick's later work are already present. Identity is unstable. Reality is unreliable. Authority slides easily into something darker. The short-fiction format, if anything, helps to frame some of these ideas better. The collection was not widely reviewed on publication, and its American paperback edition did not appear until 1966 from Berkley Medallion. The Rich & Cowan volume will always represent the first time these themes appeared between hard covers.
Stories included: Colony / Impostor / The Turning Wheel / The Deep Range / A Present for Pat / The Cookie Lady / The Builder / Expendable / Progeny / The King of the Elves / Prominent Author / Upon the Dull Earth / The Commuter
Two stories in the collection have become among his most widely anthologized, and both have been adapted. "Colony" follows a survey team on an apparently harmless alien planet that discovers that the objects around them are hostile mimics, killing by taking the form of everyday items. A microscope tries to strangle its user. A towel attacks in the shower. The horror is grounded in the sudden wrongness of familiar things. "Impostor" pushes further into the territory Dick would keep returning to. The story centers around a man who is accused of being a robot bomb and is unable to prove he is human, even to himself. The question of whether a being indistinguishable from a person is a person would later surface in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and many other works.
The other stories range considerably. "The Turning Wheel" imagines a future Buddhist theocracy in which reincarnation records determine social caste, a dystopian religious hierarchy enforced through bureaucratic machinery. "Progeny" examines parental anxiety and the creeping mechanization of childhood, following a father who returns from an extended space voyage to find his son has been raised by machines and socialized away from him. "Upon the Dull Earth" is among the darkest pieces in the collection, following a young woman whose attempt to commune with angelic forces goes catastrophically wrong in ways that cannot be undone.
Even in these early stories, the preoccupations of Dick's later work are already present. Identity is unstable. Reality is unreliable. Authority slides easily into something darker. The short-fiction format, if anything, helps to frame some of these ideas better. The collection was not widely reviewed on publication, and its American paperback edition did not appear until 1966 from Berkley Medallion. The Rich & Cowan volume will always represent the first time these themes appeared between hard covers.
Stories included: Colony / Impostor / The Turning Wheel / The Deep Range / A Present for Pat / The Cookie Lady / The Builder / Expendable / Progeny / The King of the Elves / Prominent Author / Upon the Dull Earth / The Commuter
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