VALIS (1981) Signed First Edition Reference

VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System) is Dick’s most nakedly autobiographical novel. Published by Bantam Books in 1981, the novel draws directly on Dick’s 1974 mystical experience — a series of visions and encounters with what he believed to be a divine or extraterrestrial intelligence — transmuted into fiction through the split protagonist of Horselover Fat (a translation of “Philip Dick” from Greek and German). The novel is simultaneously a theological investigation, a mental health memoir, a science fiction narrative, and a roman à clef.

The Book

Dick splits himself in two: the narrator “Phil Dick” and his alter ego “Horselover Fat,” who has experienced a divine invasion of his mind. The novel follows Fat’s quest to understand his experience, drawing on Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, early Christianity, and Dick’s own vast reading. The result is unlike anything else in fiction — a novel that is genuinely trying to answer the question of whether God exists and what God might be.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: Bantam Books, New York Publication date: 1981 Format: Mass-market paperback original (US); Corgi (UK hardcover first)

The Bantam mass-market paperback is the US first edition. Some bibliographers cite the UK Corgi hardcover as the true first in hard covers.

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition (paperback), fine: $2,000–$5,000
• Unsigned first edition (paperback), fine: $20–$50

Published just a year before Dick’s death, VALIS represents the culmination of his life’s work — the novel where all his themes converge. Signed copies, while rare, are more plausible than signed copies of the 1950s-60s titles, as Dick was more publicly active in his final years.