Dick, Phlip K. (1968) ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’, US first edition with an original signed letter and Dick’s original signed book review

Philip K. Dick (1968) ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep‘, US first edition, first printing, published by Doubleday. Together with an original letter typed by Dick and signed by him with his full signature. Accompanied by his own book review of ‘The Divine Invasion’ typed and signed by Dick with ‘Permission to Publish Sept. 29, 1981’ added in Dick’s hand. The letter is included in together with the sixth volume of ‘The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick [1980 – 1982] where the letter was published on p. 360.

The letter and book review:

In total three sheets, all typed by Philip K. Dick. The letter addressed to Venom Magazine is signed with Philip K. Dick. The humerous book review of The Divine Invasion is typed on two sheets, and is two pages long. Signed with Philip K. Dick and Permission to Publish as well as the date added by hand.  Typos corrected by hand as well. Scarce and valuable original material signed by Dick with his full name.  Letters to friends he mostly signed as ‘Phil’ only.

Condition of the book: a fine copy in a very good or better dust jacket. Clean throughout; there are no previous owner’s scribbles of any sorts, no bookplates, no stamps. Boards are clean, no bumps. Page block edges clean with no foxing. The dust jacket is not price clipped showing the USD 3.95 price as called for. The wrapper has no tears whatsoever. There is a small area on the spine between the author’s name and the title which is darker than the rest of the jacket. It has possibly resulted from the removal of a price sticker attached there. Otherwise, as dust jackets go, this is in really nice condition and in much better shape than the vast majority of specimen we have seen over the years. Overall a dream copy of one of the most iconic and best sci-fi titles published in the 20th century which gained fame with the Ridley Scott ‘Blade Runner’ adaptation.

‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ is one of the most coveted sci-fi first editions. Although Dick won the Hugo Award in 1963 for ‘The Man in the High Castle’, one would assume a higher print run for his titles publsihed thereafter. However, ‘Androids’ first editions are very scarce and in condition such as this close to impossible to find. The mystery to this lies in the publisher’s fault and treatment of his stellar writer. As PKD revealed in one of his interviews Doubleday had no incentive in paying royalties to its science fiction writer. Therefore, Doubleday would issue a first edition in hardback – typically of about 2,000 copies –  sell about 500 to libraries and a few readers, pulp the title within a few weeks, and re-issue the book under their own bookclub division thus avoiding paying higher royalties to their authors. As a result writers like PKD struggled financially through their career and fellows writers like Robert A Heinlein helpd him with funds on numerous occasions.

‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ was famously adapted as ‘Blade Runner‘ by Ridley Scott in 1982 and Dick approved of the film as he was able to see the opening scenes only months prior to its release. Unfortunately Dick died of a heart attack some three months short of the film’s release. Had he lived he would have finally witnessed the widespread recognition of his work and more film adaptations with ‘Total Recall’ (1990) and ‘Minority Report’ (2002) to name a few. He would have also finally reaped some of the royalties due for the cinematic adaptations and growing readership interest.