Cosmos.

SAGAN, Carl.

Item Number: 4587

New York: Random House, 1980.

First edition of one of the best-selling science books ever published. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. Signed by Carl Sagan on the title page. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by Robert Aulicino, jacket painting by Adolph Schaller. Signed first printings are rare.

Cosmos is the best-selling science book ever published in the English language. Brilliant and provocative, it traces today's knowledge and scientific methods to their historical roots, blending science and philosophy in a wholly energetic and irresistible way. "Enticing, imaginative, readable, iridescent" (The New York Times). It was also a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as presenter. It was executive-produced by Adrian Malone, produced by David Kennard, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles, and Gregory Andorfer, and directed by the producers, David Oyster, Richard Wells, Tom Weidlinger, and others. It covers a wide range of scientific subjects, including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until The Civil War. As of 2009, it was still the most widely watched PBS series in the world. It went on to win two Emmys and a Peabody Award, and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million people. It was followed-up by the 2014 documentary television series bearing the same name presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who, as a young high school student, was inspired by Sagan.