Signed
A Handful of Darkness
Signed first American edition, 1978
A Handful of Darkness (1955) is Philip K. Dick's first hardcover book publication, originally issued by Rich & Cowan in London in 1955. The thirteen stories, drawn from his prolific early 1950s output in Galaxy and If, introduce many of the themes about perception and reality that would define his career. This Gregg Press edition is the first American hardcover, published in 1978 with a frontispiece by Hannah Shapero and a new introduction by Richard A. Lupoff. Signed by Dick on the title page. Also signed by Lupoff on a printed slip which is laid in. Signed copies are uncommon.
Hardcover. First American Edition. Octavo, bound in dark green cloth with gold lettering on spine. Issued without a dust jacket. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1978. Levack 21g. ISBN: 0839824130. #10917.
Fine.
Hardcover. First American Edition. Octavo, bound in dark green cloth with gold lettering on spine. Issued without a dust jacket. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1978. Levack 21g. ISBN: 0839824130. #10917.
Fine.
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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