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.
THE EXPLORATION OF SPACE.
London: Temple Press, 1951. Octavo, color and black and white illustrations, original black cloth, spine stamped in gold. First edition. Signed by Clarke on the title page. Clarke's second book on rocketry and space travel. "... this book by the charman of the British Interplanetary Society is written for a wider public" (Ley). International Fantasy Award, 1952 winner for non-fiction.
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). 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). 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, n.d., [1950]. Octavo, cloth. First edition, U. S. issue (UK sheets). Title page is a cancel. Clarke's first book. "The best modern semi-technical work on astronautics" (Humphries). 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. Ciancone 50.
ROCKETS THROUGH SPACE: THE DAWN OF INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL ... Introduction by Professor A. M. Low.
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, [1936]. Octavo, pp. [1-8] 9 [10] 11-13 [14] 15-246 [247-248: blank], 22 plates, 21 figures in the text, publisher's pictorial gray cloth, front and spine panels stamped in red, top edge stained red. First edition. "Speculates on the possibilities of space flight on the basis of the results of liquid-fuel rocket tests by the German and American rocket societies of the early 1930s. This work is Great Britain's earliest book on space flight, written by the founder and first president of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) in 1933" (Pisano and Lewis). "... the only good prewar book on astronautics to be published in England" (Interlibrum). This edition includes a number of illustrations which differ from those in the 1936 U.S. edition. Ciancone 51. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 491. Interlibrum 270 #55. Pisano and Lewis 1193.
V-2 ... Translated by James Cleugh and Geoffrey Halliday. Introduction by Willy Ley.
New York: The Viking Press, 1954. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v [vi] vii-xviii [1-2] 3-281 [282-286: blank] [note: last two leaves are blanks], illustrations from photographs on plate paper, one map in text, original green cloth stamped in silver and blind, top edge stained red. First edition in English. A translation of V2 -- DER SCHUSS INS WELTALL ... (1952). "The story of the Peenemünde research institute and the development of the V-2" (Ley). "Popularly written history of the V-2; very few technical details but absorbingly interesting as an overall picture of the technical and political problems faced" (Humphries). Ciancone 60c. Humphries, Rockets and Guided Missiles 15. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, pp. 491, 506.
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. Ciancone 71. Hübner 698. Nagl, p. 255. Interlibrum 270 #140. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 508.
THE CONQUEST OF SPACE ...
New York: Penguin Press, 1931. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 1-271 [272-274: blank] [note: last leaf is a blank], four inserted plates, other illustrations in text, original black cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold. First edition. The first English-language book devoted to rocketry and space travel, written by a rocket pioneer and first president of the American Interplanetary Society, provides a summary of past and current rocket research and speculation on the future of rocket flights in the earth's atmosphere and in interplanetary space. The work consists of three parts: "The Rocket" (a history of rocketry), "The Flight Into Space" (a fictional account of a space voyage), and "New Worlds" (addressing challenges and rewards of space flight). Ciancone 123. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 492.
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. 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). Ciancone 223. Hübner 700. Interlibrum 339. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel, revised edition, 1957, p. 508.