Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record.

SAGAN, Carl; F.D. Drake; Anne Druyan; Timothy Ferris; Jon Lomberg; Linda Salzman Sagan.

$5,500.00

Item Number: 138246

New York : Random House, 1978.

First edition of this fascinating story which covers the story of the interstellar record. Quarto, original cloth, illustrated. Association copy, lengthily inscribed by both Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan on the half-title page, “For Shirley, With my deep gratitude for contributions numerous, substantive, and spiritual to the success of the project and this book. With love, Carl Sagan” and “Dearest Shirley – There is no one in all the millions of miles that Voyager crosses like you – for all your kindness, your implementation, your goodness – my deep love – I’m so lucky to know you and I treasure our friendship. Annie.” The recipient, Sagan’s executive assistant Shirley Arden, was instrumental in Sagan’s success and handled all travel arrangements and publications in his most illustrious years which saw the Viking landings on Mars, the Cosmos television series, and the Voyager mission. Ann and Carl dedicated their book Comet (1995) to Arden, and she acted as the matron of honor in their wedding. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Robert Aulicino. An exceptional association.

In 1977, two extraodinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft was a gold-coated copper phonograph record as a message to possible extra-terrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space and time. Each record contained 118 photographs of our planet; almost 90 minutes of the world's greatest music; an evolutionary audio essay on "The Sounds of Earth"; and greetings in almost sixty human languages (and one whale language). This book is an account, written by those chiefly responsible for the contents of the Voyager Record, of why they did it, how they selected the repertoire, and precisely what the record contains.