The Archaeology of the Industrial Revolution.

First edition of this comprehensive survey of physical, surviving industrial sites in the United Kingdom. Quarto, original publisher's cloth with industrial vignette stamped in silver, cartographic endpapers, richly illustrated. Signed by Stephen Hawking in blue ballpoint. Additionally signed by fifteen colleagues in various inks, as a presentation to a faculty member. The inscription in one colleague's hand reads, "With gratitude and best wishes, from the friends of the IOA computer staff." Accompanied by a provenance statement from the original recipient, which reads in part, "The book was a gift to me in 1973 on leaving a job as a computer operator at the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge University where Stephen Hawking also worked as a research scientist." Hawking was a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death. In 1968, Hawking joined the staff of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, where he remained until 1973. This became the site of some of his most important early scientific breakthroughs in the study of singularities and black holes. At the end of his tenure at the Institute of Astronomy, Hawking published his first book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, a highly technical work exploring the foundation of space itself and its nature of infinite expansion. This period also marked Hawking's physical deterioration from ALS, and he would soon lose his ability to walk and write; by 1975 he was confined to a wheelchair. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket which has been laminated. Accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from JSA. Hawking autographs are of the utmost rarity, with this rare example exhibiting ironclad provenance.