Dhalgren — Delany, Bantam Paperback 1979 printing

📖 Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany (Bantam Books, January 1975) — a paperback original of the sprawling novel set in Bellona, a ruined city cut off from the rest of the world. This copy is the 14th printing (October 1979), graded VG- with light shelf wear and age-toned pages.

QUICK FACTS

• Author: Samuel R. Delany (b. 1942)
• Publisher: Bantam Books, New York — a Frederik Pohl selection
• Year: January 1975 paperback original; this copy is the 14th printing, October 1979 (per copyright page)
• Format: Mass-market paperback, thick text block
• ISBN: 0-553-13612-7
• Condition: VG- — full report below

THE STORY

Dhalgren follows “the Kid,” an amnesiac drifter who crosses a bridge into Bellona, a damaged city where radio and telephone signals do not reach, street signs shift constantly, buildings burn for days without being consumed, and gangs roam the night streets hidden inside holographic projections. There he meets Lanya Colson, a poet in a commune in the city park, and begins filling her notebook with poems — a notebook whose pages seem to contain the novel itself. Delany built the book as a deliberate loop: passages hundreds of pages apart echo each other, and the last lines of the final chapter appear verbatim on an earlier page.

THIS EDITION

The Bantam paperback original was officially published in January 1975 (copies reached bookshelves as early as December 1974) as a Frederik Pohl selection, with the cover billed to Delany’s “four-time Nebula Award” record. The edition went through 19 printings and sold over a million copies — this copy is the 14th printing.

COVER ART

The cover shows a swollen orange sun rising over a ruined cityscape in deep reds and oranges, with three small figures on barren ground below — an apt image for the novel’s recurring vision of a deadly, oversized sun. The spine carries the Bantam Science Fiction imprint and the original $2.95 price.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Dhalgren is Delany’s most popular book — over one million copies sold worldwide — and his most controversial, with critical reaction ranging from high praise to extreme dislike.
• Theodore Sturgeon called it “the very best ever to come out of the science fiction field”; Harlan Ellison famously gave up after 361 pages.
• A hardcover edition followed in 1977 (Gregg Press, with an introduction by Jean Mark Gawron); later editions include Grafton (1992), Wesleyan University Press (1996), and Vintage (2001/2002) with introductions by William Gibson.

FREQUENTLY ASKED

What edition is this? The Bantam paperback original, first published January 1975. This copy is the 14th printing, per its copyright page.

Is it signed? No — unsigned; brief initials penned on the inside front cover are noted in the condition report below.

What condition is it in? VG- overall: minor rubbing to extremities, tight binding with slight reading lean, lightly age-toned pages. Full report below.

FOR COLLECTORS

A late printing of the original Bantam edition — the version most readers first encountered and the one that went through 19 printings. The Frederik Pohl selection banner on the cover marks it as part of Pohl’s influential paperback line.

Book Details:

• Author: Samuel R. Delany
• Illustrator: Not credited
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition Points: ISBN 0-553-13612-7; 14th printing (Feb 1979). Scarce edition.

Condition Report:

• Overall Grade: VG-
• Cover & Spine: Minor rubbing to extremities, standard shelf-wear. Spine shows mild usage typical of a thick paperback. Fairly tanned inside covers. Brief initials penned inside from cover, otherwise no writing. A couple of diagonal creases at rear cover spine corner.
• Text Block & Pages: Lightly age-toned.
• Binding: Remains tight, though shows slight reading lean characteristic of the edition’s thickness. No loose, torn or folded pages.

See accompanying images for full condition details. Will ship promptly, carefully packaged.

HFB-SEO-v1: 2026-09-08

1 in stock