Rare Book of the Day – A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking. First Edition.

In honor of the passing of Stephen Hawking, I figured I'd repost the first printing of his classic A Brief History of Time. Published in 1988, it has since sold more than 10 million copies, making of one of the best-selling popular science books of all time. It's a wonderful read, written in non-technical language for the layman, and easily holds up today.

The publication history is a bit confusing on this one, so I'm going to quote fedpo (a leading authority on first edition identification):

'The U.S. first edition was quickly recalled and scrapped because, in the author's words, it was "full of errors, with misplaced and erroneously labeled photographs and diagrams." Some scrapped copies escaped, and can be identified primarily by a silver dust jacket similar to the color of the UK dust jacket...To make matters more complicated, we have discovered what appears to be a book club edition of the U.S. first state. It has the exact same silver dust jacket, but it lacks the price on the front flap, and it lacks the barcode on the back panel....the book itself looks identical to the true first state.' Confusing indeed!

In any case, this is a beautiful copy of one of the most celebrated popular science books of the 20th century.

(Not for sale, sorry folks)