The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1965. Book Club Edition. Grey rexine boards, title lettered in black along spine, in publisher’s pictorial dust jacket. A fine bright copy.

In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the drug Can-D, which enables users to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z. It is far more potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state of drugged illusion controlled by the mysterious Eldritch.