The PKD Exegesis: A Reference for Collectors

The Exegesis is Philip K. Dick’s massive private journal, written between 1974 and his death in 1982, in which he attempted to understand the mystical experience that he believed had invaded his consciousness. The complete Exegesis runs to approximately 8,000 pages — a document of obsessive theological and philosophical inquiry that has no parallel in American literature.

Published Editions

The Exegesis was published in edited form by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2011, edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem. The published version is approximately 900 pages — a fraction of the complete manuscript. Even in this reduced form, it is a remarkable document: part theology, part philosophy, part autobiography, part confession, and part evidence of a brilliant mind struggling with experiences it could not explain.

Collecting Significance

The published Exegesis is a key PKD collectible — not as a first edition in the traditional sense, but as a document that illuminates everything Dick wrote. Readers who have encountered the Exegesis find that it transforms their understanding of VALIS, A Scanner Darkly, and Dick’s entire late period.

Market Values

• First edition hardcover: $20–$50
• Limited/special editions (if any): $50–$150

The Exegesis is essential reading for serious PKD collectors and scholars. Its publication transformed Dick studies by making available the private obsessions that drove his fiction.