A Short History of Nearly Everything

By Bill Bryson

First UK edition, first impression: London: Doubleday, 2003; together with the revised and updated edition, first impression: London: Doubleday, 2025. Both signed by the author to the title page.

Two volumes. A Short History of Nearly Everything: original black cloth, the spine lettered in gilt; text illustrations by Neil Gower. In the original unclipped dust jacket, priced £20.00 on the front flap, designed in the manner of flat-pack packaging: a globe to be cut out along a dotted line, a set of assembly fittings, and a printed impression of plastic wrapping. Signed in green ink, with a numbered BBC “Guest / Bush House” pass to the title page, from the occasion on which the book was signed.

A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0: original white cloth, the spine lettered in metallic blue; blue endpapers. In the original unclipped dust jacket, priced £25.00 on the front flap, illustrated by Neil Gower. Signed in black ink.

A Short History of Nearly Everything: a near fine copy, with some toning to the edges; the boards and contents otherwise fresh and clean. The dust jacket near fine and unclipped, with a little fading to the lettering on the spine panel and some light wear to the top edge.

A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0: a fine copy in a fine and unclipped dust jacket.

Bryson’s account of how science arrived at what it knows, from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation, which won the Royal Society’s Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize of the European Union. Twenty-two years later he published the second volume here, “fully revised and updated . to reflect the many scientific discoveries since this book was first published in 2003”, explaining, among much else, why Pluto is no longer a planet. The BBC World Service broadcast from Bush House until July 2012.