1980s

THE HAND OF ZEI by L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP. Owlswick Press, 1981. First complete edition. Hardcover. With illustrated boards but without jacket, as issued by the publisher. I am offering virtually as-new copies from the publisher’s leftover stock, which are (as I have them) still in the original shrink-wrap in bundles of 4 books each. So you will not get a copy in shrink-wrap, but you can know that I just got it out of wrap, and so it is virtually pristine, with no wear. Despite this a lot of copies seem to have a couple brown foxing specks on the edges of the pages. The original retail price of the book was, if I recall correctly, $20.50. Owlswick book prices always ended in odd like that so that if a check got loose from its order you could always tell what it was for. The story is a “sword and planet” adventure, an attempt by de Camp to do a Burroughs/Barsoomian sort of story, only more intelligently and with scientific plausibility. It is a major novel in his series set on the planet Krishna. The novel was serialized in ASTOUNDING in 4 parts in 1950. It was then broken into two short volumes, with some rewriting to give the first one a false ending, and published in hardcover by Avalon in the later ’50s. The Ace Double of THE HAND OF ZEI and THE SEARCH FOR ZEI of 1963 follows the Avalon versions. This is the first book publication of the ASTOUNDING serial text, and is intended to be definitive. It reproduces all the original (very nice) ED CARTIER illustrations from the magazine serial. The cover was repainted by KELLY FREAS from one of four color roughs submitted by Cartier to ASTOUNDING, although not the one ASTOUNDING used. So it is a kind of “alternate Cartier” painting that Cartier never finished. Always happy to combine shipments on multiple wins. Please note that the foreign postage prices are a guess. If they prove too high, I will refund the difference.