THE SINISTER RESEARCHES OF C. P. RANSOM. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1954. Octavo, boards. First edition. Nine stories plus "The Dilemma" (introduction) and "The Award" (epilogue) "humorously describing the self-absorbed rivalry of two all-too-typical academicians -- professor Ransom, a mathematician, and professor MacTate, a philosopher. They try to develop inventions that blend the arts and sciences and hilariously fail. Gentle in tone but reflective of a deadly serious quarrel between the sciences and the humanities that was described by C. P. Snow in his 1956 Reith lectures, published as THE TWO CULTURES. Some of the humor may be a bit esoteric, but the book's influence could be subtly salutary on university types outside the SF orbit." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-798. Includes "The Poetry Machine," the story of a computer that writes poetry. Two stories are original to this collection, "The Aesthetic Decapitations" and "The Hermeneutical Doughnut," the others were first published in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. A fine copy in very good dust jacket (designed by Edward Gorey) with light wear at edges and dulling of background ink here and there. (#118798).
Price: $75.00
First edition so stated on copyright page.