2001: A Space Odyssey

New York: New American Library, (1968). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 221 pp. Original eighth black cloth over aqua paper-covered boards, stamped in silver, cyan, in original unclipped ($4.95) dust-jacket. Edge wear with chipping, wrinkling, and tears, some loss, fraying to spine ends and corners rubbing and scuffs. Trivial soiling and toning. Protected in archival mylar. Book is moderately square and has been read. Rubbing and wear to edges with smudges to panels and small bumps to corners. Light curling to spine ends. Page edges toned with foxing to top text block. Interior clean and unmarked.

Dust Jacket: Good

Hardcover: Good

“2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author. The story is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, including "The Sentinel" (written in 1948 for a BBC competition, but first published in 1951 under the title "Sentinel of Eternity"). By 1992, the novel had sold three million copies worldwide. An elaboration of Clarke and Kubrick's collaborative work on this project was made in the 1972 book The Lost Worlds of 2001. The first part of the novel, in which aliens influence the primitive ancestors of humans, is similar to the plot of Clarke's 1953 short story "Encounter in the Dawn".