Dust jackets for a Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

While working on the Provenance Project, I was fortunate to come across a copy of Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time, in pristine condition.  It is not part of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection but is actually part of the collection belonging to the Theater Research Institute.   I thought it seemed a relevant topic, nonetheless, with the release of the movie, The Theory of Everything, based on a book written by Hawking’s ex-wife, Jane Wilde, about their life together.  It occurred to me that the movie has most likely renewed interest in the work.  From my personal observations, this seems to be the case.  I cannot speak on a national or global level, but when I attempted to check out a copy of the book from my public library, every copy in the system was already on loan.  Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to feature some elements of the book that has attracted such a large audience.   (See Coyle for more information about the importance of the book.)

Stephen Hawking began his work in physics in the 1960’s and has continued to contribute to the field despite suffering with Lou Gehrig’s disease.  The book was first published in 1988 by Bantam Books and was a best seller.  It presents some of science’s most fascinating questions in a way that is accessible to the everyday reader.  This is a major factor in the book’s ongoing success, selling over 10 million copies, as well as turning Hawking into “a curious kind of cultural icon” (Benford, 2002, Coyle;  BBC page).  In fact, in an article written about the book for the Wall Street Journal, Hawking talks about what a long and arduous process it was to complete the book and how surprised he was at its immediate success.  Hawking states that, “It was on the New York Times best-seller list for 147 weeks and on the London Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks, has been translated into 40 languages, and has sold over 10 million copies world-wide” (Hawking, 2013).

The book, in itself, is a fascinating object.  A photograph of Hawking sitting in front of a starry background graces the front of both copies held in Special Collections, the book jacket of the original edition and the updated paperback from 1998.  Inside there are numerous illustrations, graphs, and diagrams to enjoy.  Interestingly, when discussing the reasons people have purchased the book, Hawking claims that some have admitted that they just thought it would look nice on their bookshelf or coffee table (Hawking, 2013).