Pale Blue Dot. By Carl Sagan. First Edition, First Printing. Random House. New York, 1994.

Carl Sagan is arguably the most influential ambassador of science from the twentieth century. As an astronomer, he made significant contributions to our understanding of the moons in our solar system and to the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter. Then, in 1980, he co-wrote and narrated the BBC series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which catapulted his fame and elevated our cultural awareness of cosmology and space. This volume, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future In Space, was published later in Sagan’s career. Its title is borrowed from the name of an important photograph of earth taken by the Voyager 1 space probe. In this photograph, earth appears as a tiny blue dot in the vastness of space. Sagan himself implored NASA to take the photo–earth’s most distant selfie. It became culturally relevant later when Sagan used it as a rhetorical device to discuss the small place, the preciousness, of earth. This volume is where he makes that case as well as traces a possible future for humans in such an expansive universe. It is considered one of Sagan’s best works.

This first edition, first printing is in near-fine condition. In the original quarter cloth, fine. Text block near-fine, only gift inscription to flyleaf. In the original dust jacket, very nearly fine with only minor bumping and rubbing.

A near-fine first edition of Pale Blue Dot.