Get Off the Unicorn

Get Off the Unicorn
First edition cover
AuthorAnne McCaffrey
Cover artistPaul Alexander
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
PublisherDel Rey/Ballantine
Publication date
June 1977
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pagesxii, 303 pp.
ISBN0-552-10965-7

Get Off the Unicorn is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Anne McCaffrey, first published in paperback by Del Rey Books in June 1977. Eleven of the fourteen stories were previously published in various magazines and anthologies. Initial sales were brisk; two additional printings were required by year's end. Del Rey reprinted Get off the Unicorn regularly throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and its edition remains in print as of 2015. Corgi issued a British edition in 1979 and an Australian edition in 1980.[1] An audiobook based on the Corgi edition was released in 1985.[2] Severn House issued a hardcover edition in 1982.[1]

The title was derived by accident: McCaffrey's working title had been "Get of the Unicorn" but this was misprinted as "Get Off the Unicorn" in Ballantine's roster of unfilled contracts. After McCaffrey's editor, Judy-Lynn del Rey, was repeatedly asked what "Get Off the Unicorn" was, del Rey asked McCaffrey what she could do about that theme.[3]

  1. ^ a b ISFDB publishing history
  2. ^ National Library of Australia
  3. ^ McCaffrey, Anne (1977), Get Off the Unicorn, Random House Publishing, p. Introduction, ISBN 0-552-10965-7, retrieved 2011-03-20