THE BEST OF PKD   (Collection)

1st.EDITION:

OTHER ENGLISH EDITIONS:


FOREIGN EDITIONS:

{For the best bibliographic info in French goto: www.multimania.com/ggoullet/pkdick/frames.html Thanks for the cover pix, Gilles}


{The following is from Ken Lopez, Bookseller, Online catalog May 1997. As far as I know this package is still for sale}

3. The Best of Philip K. Dick. (Published by Ballantine, 1977). The ribbon copy typescript of the 10-page "Afterthoughts by the Author" provided by Dick to this collection of stories, which he helped select and which contains therefore many of his very best short works, including the story Lawrence Sutin, his biographer, calls "the best of all his stories, `The Electric Ant.'" On a scale of 1 to 10, this is one of the very few books that Sutin gives a rating of 10. The last five pages consist of paragraphs of typescript cut apart and glued on to sheets of typing paper. There is one change in Dick's hand. Together with the setting copy of the book, consisting of a typed contents page and photocopied tearsheets of the book's contents from various magazines (lacking the 14 page John Brunner introduction). While there was no "original manuscript," per se, for this book, it is an important element of the Dick canon, and this is a unique copy, and the best possible copy. Good. $6000


TDC 41

(KCB:) Do you have a Donald Wollheim story?

(PKD:) Matter of fact. I have. When I was preparing the Ballantine collection, Donald Wollheim wrote to me and said, "I'd like to do a collection of your stories." I said, "I'm sorry, Don, but I'm going through my stories to sell to Ballantine right now." He wrote back and said, "Well, Betty" -- Betty Ballantine was still editor --"Betty and I have different tastes. Give me what Betty doesn't want." And that's exactly what he got. Wollheim read them over and became hysterical. He said, "These are Betty Ballantine rejects!" I says, "Don, that's what we contracted for." He says, "Well, the stories aren't very good." And I said, "Yeah, and the price ain't very good, either." He published them, but he was grumpy about it. That's my Wollheim story.


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