MORE THAN HUMAN.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Young with Ballantine Books, [1955]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Ballantine 46. Signed by Sturgeon on the title page. Simultaneous with the Farrar, Straus and Young hardbound issue. MORE THAN HUMAN is one of Sturgeon's best and probably his best-known novel. The story expresses a recurrent theme in the author's work: the passage of a character (or, in this case, six of them) from freak to superman, a passage of self-discovery and self-realization, if not apotheosis. In this story, the six outcasts come together to form a more-than-human collective psyche. It is told with the author's characteristic depth of emotional resonance. "Growing out of the acclaimed novella, 'Baby is Three," this excellent work describes the rise, against all meanness and bigotries of the surrounding world, of Homo Gestalt, an individual composed of the blended intelligences of numerous people, each of whom retains personal identity while contributing a particular strength or talent to the whole. An emergence-of-the-superhuman story, made more of a struggle than it was for the superchildren in Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END (1953), but shorn also of the inevitable tragedy forecast for the superhumans in Stapledon's ODD JOHN (1935)." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-1100. Winner of the 1954 International Fantasy Award for best novel. [Reference: Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1560]. Edge rubs, mainly to spine edges, a fine copy. (29214). Item #29214
Price: $150.00