Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays.

HAWKING, Stephen.

Item Number: 119530

Toronto: Bantam Books, 1994.

Early printing of the Bantam Press edition of Hawking’s first collection of essays. Octavo, original illustrated wrappers. Signed by Stephen Hawking on the title page with his thumbprint in silver ink. Hawking was diagnosed with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neuron disease (MND, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 1963 at the age of 21, yet his fierce independence and unwillingness to make concessions for his disabilities allowed him to continue his work, even as his motor functions (including his ability to write) and ability to speak deteriorated. In fine condition. Cover photograph by Jim Wilson. Cover illustration by Richard Tuschman. From the personal collection of Stephen Hawking.

"Stephen Hawking has done it again. In A Brief History of Time he succeeded in interesting the widest possible audiences in the most abstract of theoretical astrophysics. Now he has once more broken out of the scientific ghetto to claim the intellectual and cultural high ground for science... Black Holes and Baby Universes takes us still further, almost over the limit... " (Independent on Sunday).