“AT SOME POINT THE WHOLE SYSTEM WILL FAIL… PERHAPS NEW SORTS OF WIZARDS WILL BE REQUIRED THEN”

STEPHENSON, Neal. Quicksilver. WITH: The Confusion. WITH: The System of the World. (New York): William Morrow, (2003-04). Three volumes. Thick octavo, original stiff paper boards, cartographic endpapers, original dust jackets. $1250.

First trade editions of all three volumes in Stephenson’s impressive Baroque Cycle, each signed by the author.

Stephenson's ambitious, intricately researched reimagining of late-17th and early 18th century scientific history grew, indirectly, out of his 1999 bestseller, Cryptonomicon. "I had been working on a future storyline connected to Cryptonomicon," the author later recalled for Locus magazine, "but in attempting to write it I realized I needed to go back instead." The result was "a genre-buster, a giddy historical swashbuckler crossed with the novel of ideas, with hints of sci-fi tossed into the mix" (New York Times). Quicksilver and System of the World signed on title pages; Confusion one of an unknown number signed on publisher's tipped-in leaf. Each volume also issued in a deluxe signed limited edition of 1000 copies. Bookseller stickers to The Confusion dust jacket.

A fine signed set of first editions.