Book excerpt: At least eighty percent of the mass of the universe consists of some material which, unlike ordinary matter, neither emits nor absorbs light. This book collects key papers related to the discovery of this astonishing fact and its profound implications for astrophysics, cosmology, and the physics of elementary particles. The book focuses on the likely possibility that the dark matter is composed of an as yet undiscovered elementary particle, and examines the boundaries of our present knowledge of the properties such a particle must possess.