Lost in the Cosmos (Inscribed to Ken Hubner)

Walker Percy

Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1983

About this Item

PERCY, Walker. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983. First edition, first printing, with ?First printing, 1983? stated on the copyright page. Octavo; [x], 262 pp.; publisher?s gray boards backed in black cloth, spine stamped in silver; original pictorial dust jacket designed by Sigrid Spaeth, with $14.95 price intact. Inscribed by Walker Percy to New York bookseller Ken Hubner.

Near Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket. Book has sharp corners and a tight, square binding; interior is clean and unmarked, with only a touch of foxing or spotting to the top edge of the text block. Jacket has bright, vibrant colors and a tiny 1 cm closed tear; not price-clipped. A collector?s copy.

Note: Percy?s inscription to Ken Hubner gives this copy a desirable bookselling association. The first trade printing is identified by the stated first printing, the gray paper-covered boards with black cloth spine and silver stamping, and the first-issue Spaeth jacket retaining its original $14.95 price; a separate signed limited edition of 350 copies was also issued. Inscribed first-printing copies in bright, minimally worn jackets are especially appealing.

Importance: Subtitled ?The Last Self-Help Book,? Percy?s second work of nonfiction is a witty, formally inventive critique of the modern self and the inadequacy of conventional self-help. Through questionnaires, thought experiments, diagrams, satire, semiotics, and philosophical inquiry, Percy examines alienation, language, consciousness, and humanity?s place in the universe. This inscribed first edition, first printing, in its unclipped jacket is a particularly attractive copy for collectors of Percy, modern Southern literature, and American intellectual writing.

Seller Inventory # WP-003

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Lost in the Cosmos (Inscribed to Ken Hubner)
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York
• Publication Date: 1983
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)