[San Francisco]: David Benedetti, 1982.
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Softcover. Square octavo. White and green-lined computer sheets with string-tied punch holes along the left margin. The title in black marker on the cover and subtitled in black ink below. The first 16 pages of the introduction have two additional punch holes at the top and bottom of each page. Near fine with light wear at the edges and a few spots.
Quite possibly the first novel entirely "written" by a computer, based on a program created by David Benedetti, as explained in his introduction: "To say that this work was written by a computer means just that: I did not change one word of the output, add to it, or subtract anything from it. You see it just as it came printed out as the result of running 'a job' on an IBM 370/158 computer. I supplied the computer with a list of 1,088 words and a program designed to pick words from the list and place them into sentences and paragraphs."
Beneditti was at the time a system analyst and researcher working at Southern Pacific Transportation Company in San Francisco, and the author of two books: *The Internal Weather* (1971) and *Nictitating Membrane* (1976). He goes on to explain his establishment of grammar rules, how word meaning did not play a part in their placement, and that while "objective writing" was his goal, he readily admits an unavoidable bias due to the group of words being those he personally selected. He also acknowledges that this experiment "can also be thought of as a further extension of the 'cut up' technique ... being pushed to one of its limits."
Beneditti closes the foreword with examples from the text of striking originality and profound normalcy. He states that while the program was limited to 10,000 words, it surprisingly did not get as repetitious as expected, and he speculates on the potential of including the entire dictionary in further experiments.
*The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed*, published in 1983, is credited as the first novel by a computer, based on a program written by William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter. This work predates that effort by a year and is virtually unknown with *OCLC* locating only one other copy. Given the unique format and DIY aesthetic, we suspect very few copies of *Social Climax Text* were produced and far fewer have survived.
Item #535190
