Dune, the first edition, first printing, in its first issue dust jacket and signed by Herbert

Frank Herbert

Published by Chilton Books, Philadelphia and New York, 1965

About this Item

This is a notably clean signed first edition, first printing, in the first state dust jacket, housed in a custom Solander case. Condition is near fine. Herbert characteristically signed in black ink on the title page, crossing out his printed name and signing above, and at an angle consonant with, the slope of the stylized sand dune. First edition is so stated on the copyright page and first printing confirmed by copyright page content. The first issue dust jacket is confirmed by an intact "5.95" front flap price and the publisher information in four lines on the lower rear flap. The blue cloth binding is square and clean with sharp corners, no color shift, and bright white spine print. There is no appreciable wear and only trivial wrinkling to the spine ends. The contents remain bright with a crisp feel. We find no spotting, age-toning, or previous ownership marks other than the author s signature. Slight soiling does not significantly mar the otherwise white page edges. The illustrated dust jacket is clean and complete apart from fractional wear at the spine ends with trivial wear otherwise confined to the corners and front hinge. Color shift to the jacket spine is barely detectable, retaining clearly yellow color in the author s printed name and strong color in the wraparound illustration. The rear face map of Arrakis is unsoiled. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover. The book is protected within a full tan-orange Morocco goatskin Solander. The Solander features twin blue Morocco spine labels, raised and gilt-framed spine bands, gilt-framed border rules on each cover, and a marbled paper lining. The Morocco and marbled paper hues were chosen to evoke the hues of Arrakis desert, Spice, and Fremen eyes. Condition of the Solander is pristine.More than half a century after it was published, Dune continues to be regarded among the greatest science fiction novels. The road to appreciation of Herbert s work was through a proverbial desert. Dune was long, complex, strange, and unprecedented and predictably rejected by more than 20 publishing houses before being improbably accepted by Chilton, a Philadelphia operation known for auto repair manuals and hobby magazines.Many writers take an odd, tortuous path to literary greatness. Frank Patrick Herbert, Jr. (1920-1986) proved the rule. Herbert had worked as a writer for more than two decades before Dune, but was "chronically broke" and had, at turns, tried his luck as a journalist, war photographer, and even as a Congressional speech writer. 1959 found a 40-year-old Herbert on the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, researching a story about a U.S. Department of Agriculture program to stabilize the shifting sands. The Oregon dunes proved fertile ground for creative epiphany. "Herbert was a quintessential product of the libertarian culture of the Pacific coast, self-reliant and distrustful of centralized authority, yet with a mile-wide streak of utopian futurism and a concomitant willingness to experiment." Herbert s research into dunes became research into deserts and desert cultures, thence two short, serialized novels that he then re-worked into the single, giant epic that became Dune.Dune is speculative fiction in the fullest sense. In Dune, Herbert created a reality at once compellingly foreign and provocatively familiar in philosophical, political, and cultural strictures tightly woven by Herbert and then cathartically disrupted. Herbert populated this reality with characters personal enough for the reader to identify and invest, yet potent enough to serve as allegory. Dune was revolutionary, even within the genre. Classic science fiction elements of galactic empire and faster than light space travel interleave with Homeric tragedy, biblical exile, suffering, and revelation, mystic states of altered consciousness, ecological sustainability as an ethos, and socio-political tensions between order and anarchy, revolution and reconciliation. An unqu.

Seller Inventory # 003802

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Dune, the first edition, first printing, in its first issue dust jacket and signed by Herbert
• Publisher: Chilton Books, Philadelphia and New York
• Publication Date: 1965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First edition, first printing.
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)