First edition, first printing. x, 198pp, illustrated, with an introduction by Carl Sagan. In blue cloth-covered boards with gilt titles on spine (cloth very lightly faded at extreme tip of spine). Internally neat, clean, bright and tight throughout. In its original dust jacket (very lightly bumped at head of spine). Dust jacket now protected in an archival-quality Mylar wrapper, fitted without the use of tape and adhesives. 8vo. A true first edition of this seminal work of popular science which sets out for the layman an introduction to cosmology, asking such fundamental questions as How Did the World Come Into Being? and How Will It Come to an End?, which fundamentally changed wider understanding of and interest in the nature of the universe. Copyright page says Published 1988 by Bantum Press, with no statement of reprints, and dust jacket has price at £14.95 (all as called for). This first edition includes an introduction by renowned astronomer, Carl Sagan; the introduction was removed after the first edition as the copyright was held by Sagan and the publisher did not have the rights to reprint it (Hawking wrote his own introduction for later editions).
