Rockets
WAR FOR THE MOON.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959. Octavo, numerous illustration ands photographs, cloth. First edition. Contemporary to the time period of the early race for the moon.
INTERPLANETARY FLIGHT: AN INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONAUTICS ...
London: Temple Press Limited, [1950]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Clarke's first book. "The best modern semi-technical work on astronautics" (Humphries). [Reference: Ciancone 45. Humphries, Rockets and Guided Missiles 21. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 490].
INTERPLANETARY FLIGHT: AN INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONAUTICS ...
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, [1950]. Octavo, cloth. First edition, U.S. issue (UK sheets). Clarke's first book. "The best modern semi-technical work on astronautics" (Humphries). [Reference: Ciancone 45. Humphries, Rockets and Guided Missiles 21. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 490].
INTERPLANETARY FLIGHT: AN INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONAUTICS ...
London: Temple Press Limited, [1950]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Clarke's first book. Great associational copy with signatures of many post war science fiction authors, editors and fans. Signed by Clarke and; Walter Gillings, Ted Carnell, John Beynon Harris, C. S. Youd (John Christopher), Eric Williams, William F. Temple, Fred[erick] C. Brown, M. E. Allen, John Frederick Burke, J[ohn] Newman, and one unidentified. All were active in British fandom which met at the White Horse pub in London and all the signatories with the exception of one are on a known list of attendees at the 1948 Whitcon, the first post-war British science fiction convention. "The best modern semi-technical work on astronautics" (Humphries). [Reference: Ciancone 45. Humphries, Rockets and Guided Missiles 21. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 490].
THE MAKING OF A MOON: THE STORY OF THE EARTH SATELLITE PROGRAM.
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, [1958]. 24 plates, 24 figures in the text, original blue boards with black cloth shelf back, front and spine panels stamped in silver, fore-edge untrimmed. Revised edition. [Reference: Ciancone 50].
MIT RAKETENKRAFT INS WELTENALL: VOM FEUERWAGEN ZUM RAUMSCHIFF. Mit einem Vorwort von Max Valier und vielen Bildern, Zeichnungen und Originalphotographien.
Stuttgart: K. Thienemanns Verlag, [1928]. Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5 [6-8] 9-106 [107-108] [109-111: ads] [112: publisher's device], eight inserted plates with illustrations on rectos and versos, other illustrations and diagrams in the text by Max Valier, cloth-backed pictorial boards (fine illustration by Chomton on front panel). First edition. "... one of the classic books published in the incunabulum period of rocket literature. Otto Willi Gail dedicates the volume to Fritz von Opel, the sponsor of the famous Opel-Rocket car inspired by Max Valier who was then an advocate of the powder rocket before Oberth convinced him of the future possibilities and potentials of fuel rockets." - Interlibrum 140. [Reference: Ciancone 71. Hübner 698. Nagl, p. 255. Interlibrum 270 #140. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 508].
LIQUID-PROPELLANT ROCKET DEVELOPMENT ...
City of Washington: Published by The Smithsonian Institution, 1936. Octavo, pp. [1-2] 1-10, eleven pages of illustrations on six inserted plates, original tan wrappers printed in black, sewn, untrimmed. First edition. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 95, Number 3 (Publication 3381). "Includes the first public mention of Goddard's historic 1926 liquid-fueled rocket launch" (Ciancone). [Reference: Ciancone 85. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 491. Interlibrum 270 #151].
A METHOD OF REACHING EXTREME ALTITUDES ...
City of Washington: Published by The Smithsonian Institution, 1919 [i.e. 1920]. Octavo, pp. [1-3] 4-69 [70: blank], ten pages of illustrations on five inserted plates, original gray wrappers printed in black, edges untrimmed. First edition. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 71, Number 2 (Publication 2540). Actually published in 1920, despite stated publication date of 1919. The first monograph in English on the use of rockets for space travel. [Reference: Ciancone 84. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 491. Interlibrum 270 #151].
MECHANIX ILLUSTRATED.
Louisville, KY: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1945. Octavo, single issue cover painting by Chesley Bonestell, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Includes an illustrated sixteen page article by Willy Ley, "Rocket To The Moon?" It also feature a number of paintings by Chesley Bonestell.
DIE RAKETE ZU DEN PLANETENRÄUMEN ...
München und Berlin: Druck und Verlag von R. Oldenbourg, 1923. Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5 [6-7] 8 [9] 10-92, three folded plates (one counted as figure 53), other figures in the text, original decorated gray wrappers printed in black, all edges untrimmed. First edition. The first technical book on space travel. "... Oberth's book became the sole cornerstone of all later space-travel ideas ..." - Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel (1951), p. 109. [Reference: Ciancone 176. Hübner 694. Interlibrum 270 #260. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 507].
RAKETENFAHRT ... 2. Auflage Zugleich 6. Auflage von VORSTOSS IN DEN WELTENRAUM EINE TECHNISCHE MÖGLICHKEIT.
München und Berlin: Verlag R. Oldenbourg, 1930. Octavo, pp. [i-ii] iii-viii 1-240, 61 illustrations and diagrams in the text, original pictorial yellow cloth, front and spine panels stamped in red, top edge stained red. Sixth edition, revised and enlarged. The fifth edition of DER VORSTOSS IN DEN WELTRAUM (1924), published in 1928, was extensively revised and enlarged. This sixth edition (the second edition under this title) was published in 1930. Both the fifth and the sixth editions were issued in cloth and in wrappers. The foremost first-generation western European publicist who was a moving force in the organization and promotion of rocket societies, in this case the Austrian groups and the German Rocket Society, was Max Valier (1893-1930). Valier's biographer traces his first thoughts of rockets and space travel back to his school days at Innsbruck University in 1913 -- 1914. His reputation as an authority on space travel was firmly established by the time of his first major astronomical work, DER VORSTOSS IN DEN WELTRAUM, published in 1924. Valier's career ended in 1930 when he was killed while experimenting with a liquid-propellant engine for a rocket car. Valier's role as chief rocket publicist in western Europe was assumed by Willy Ley, who from the appearance of his first book, DIE FAHRT INS WELTALL in 1926, was the preeminent astronautical author-lecturer for forty years (adapted from Winter, Prelude to the Space Age, the Rocket Societies: 1924-1940, p. 24). [Reference: Ciancone 223. Hübner 700. Interlibrum 339. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 508].