Willy

rif. 124568 — London Grayson & Grayson Ltd. 1951. . First UK edition; 8vo; dampstain to the rear endpapers and blanks marks to pages 214 and 215 and corresponding lighter marks to adjoining pages top edge of the text block darkened and spotted; original red cloth titles to spine in black dampstain to the lower board pale scuffs to the spine a very good copy in the jacket with corresponding dampstain on the lower panel and spine panel and some rubbing nicks and short splits First UK edition originally published in the US in the previous year. This collection contains eight short stories by Isaac Asimov L. Ron Hubbard Manly Wade Wellman Lewis Padgett joint pseudonym of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore A.E. van Vogt and E. M. Hull. The introduction is by the prominent rocketry expert Willy Ley. Willy Otto Oskar Ley 1906-1969 became interested in rocketry after reading Hermann Oberth's technical work Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen 1923. Aged only 19 he wrote a popularisation of the book's contents beginning his career as a prolific author. He was one of the first members of the amateur Society for Space Travel Verein für Raumschiffahrt and served as a technical consultant on Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon Die Frau im Mond the first film to depict realistic space flight. Ley was deeply opposed to Nazism and fled Germany in 1935. He settled in the United States where his background aligned with the post-war explosion of interest in space exploration and science fiction. In addition to many one-off books and articles he published a regular column in Galaxy Science Fiction appeared in the 1955 Disney programme 'Man in Space' and was cited by the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration. London, Grayson & Grayson, Ltd., 1951. hardcover