# Is "A Handful of Darkness" by Philip K. Dick a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of A Handful of Darkness by Philip K. Dick (Rich & Cowan, 1955) is identified by: First edition: Rich & Cowan, London, published August 1955, 216 pages. UK original; Rich & Cowan (London) 1955 is the true first of this collection — there is no competing period US edition, and America did not see one until Gregg Press in 1978.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition: Rich & Cowan, London, published August 1955, 216 pages
- The copyright page reads "First Published – 1955"; there is no date on the title page
- FIRST BINDING: blue boards lettered in silver with a rocket/spaceship device on the spine panel — catalogued by L. W. Currey as "first binding of blue boards with spine panel stamped in silver"
- A later binding state is orange boards (also recorded in blue) lettered in black with a griffin device on the panel
- JACKET STATES: the first-issue jacket does NOT list World of Chance on the rear panel; the later jacket lists World of Chance and is found on both binding states, so binding and jacket must be assessed separately — an orange-boards copy in a World-of-Chance jacket is a later state of the first edition, not a first issue
- Jacket art by Peter Rudland
- Publisher imprint reads Rich & Cowan

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Philip K. Dick |
| Publisher | Rich & Cowan |
| Year | 1955 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition: Rich & Cowan, London, published August 1955, 216 pages |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition: Rich & Cowan, London, published August 1955, 216 pages. The copyright page reads "First Published – 1955"; there is no date on the title page. FIRST BINDING: blue boards lettered in silver with a rocket/spaceship device on the spine panel — catalogued by L. W. Currey as "first binding of blue boards with spine panel stamped in silver". A later binding state is orange boards (also recorded in blue) lettered in black with a griffin device on the panel. JACKET STATES: the first-issue jacket does NOT list World of Chance on the rear panel; the later jacket lists World of Chance and is found on both binding states, so binding and jacket must be assessed separately — an orange-boards copy in a World-of-Chance jacket is a later state of the first edition, not a first issue. Jacket art by Peter Rudland. A Rich & Cowan second printing followed in 1957.

## Is this the true first?
UK original; Rich & Cowan (London) 1955 is the true first of this collection — there is no competing period US edition, and America did not see one until Gregg Press in 1978. The census is right that the Ace collection The Variable Man (1957) is a different book with different contents. REFUTES the census claim that this is "PKD's first book anywhere": Solar Lottery (Ace Books D-103, a paperback original, May 1955) preceded it by roughly three months and is Dick's first book. A Handful of Darkness is correctly described as Dick's SECOND book, his first short-story collection, and his first hardcover — the formulation used by the standard PKD bibliographic sources. Note a related snare: the Rich & Cowan hardcover of the novel — World of Chance, the retitled and revised UK Solar Lottery — is 1956, so it postdates this collection despite Solar Lottery preceding it in the US; some sources garble this into a claim that Rich & Cowan published Dick before A Handful of Darkness, which they did not.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented for the Rich & Cowan first. The tells that matter are internal to the edition: the 1957 Rich & Cowan second printing; the later orange-boards/black-lettering/griffin binding in place of the first blue-boards/silver/rocket binding; and the later jacket listing World of Chance on the rear panel. The Gregg Press (US) 1978 hardcover is a later reprint and the first American appearance, not a first edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *A Handful of Darkness* by Philip K. Dick a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/a-handful-of-darkness
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.