"IT'S THE BASIC CONDITION OF LIFE TO BE REQUIRED TO VIOLATE OUR OWN IDENTITY": FIRST EDITION OF PHILIP K. DICK'S DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

DICK, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Garden City: Doubleday, 1968. Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $24,500.

First edition of one of science fiction's most famous and influential novels (and inspiration for the landmark futuristic film noir, Blade Runner), Dick's masterful vision of the struggles between technology and humanity, entropy and empathy, in a post-apocalyptic world.

Dick looms large as science fiction's "all-time grand master of… pop epistemology" (Disch, 52). In this novel, one of his most popular and powerful, he envisions a bleak future in which "android animals are marketed to help expiate the guilt people experience because real ones have been virtually exterminated," and in which bounty hunter Rick Deckard "must hunt down androids illegally imported from Mars. In so doing, he learns that the society's new messiah may also be a fake; and that [its] landscapes of decay and imposture may in fact only mirror his own condition" (Clute & Nicholls, 329). "A key novel in Dick's canon" (Anatomy of Wonder II-326). Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott's visually stunning film adaptation, "did not receive much critical acclaim nor did it do well at the box office" when released in 1982. A "Director's Cut" a decade later, however, "received highly positive reviews" (Tibbetts & Welsh, 91-92), and subsequent revisions have only enhanced its status as a definitive fusion of hard-boiled detective story and philosophically profound science fiction. "First Edition" stated on copyright page. Currey, 125. Pringle 55.

Inner hinges and text block fore-edge with very light foxing; book cloth with a few small, faint spots; dust jacket with light edgewear and dust-soiling to back panel, spine gently toned as often seen. A very good or better copy.