The great Library of America is proving once and for all that the conceptually brilliant, innovative, and incredibly influential (and deeply disturbed A+ weirdo) Philip K. Dick is one of our preeminent cult authors — and perhaps even one of our finest authors.

Their volumes collecting Dick’s novels — there will be two as of this July — are apparently flying off the shelves.

Well, “flying off the shelves” in terms of the Library of America at least…

“When we first conceived our multivolume and multi-year plan for a Philip K. Dick edition, we never dreamed that it would resonate so strongly with our readers,” McCarthy emailed me. “The closest comparison in terms of velocity of sales out of the gate would be our Grant and Sherman volumes, released in 1990 at the same time as the debut of Ken Burn’s The Civil War on PBS. But even those volumes didn’t sell as fast as has the PKD.” The success of the Dick collection—as well as the Kerouac and Lovecraft books—provides financial support for other LOA books that, as he says, “while essential additions to our national canon, generally do not sell at self-sustaining levels.” Not to mention that they bring a whole new readership to the Library, one which has the potential to branch out and explore other volumes. (Fans of Dick and Lovecraft, for example, might do well to consider the three-volume edition of I.B. Singer’s short stories…)

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