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SPLENDID ASSOCIATION COPY: ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCARCE FIRST PUBLISHED NOVEL, INSCRIBED BY HIM TO FELLOW SCIENCE FICTION GRAND MASTER ANDRÉ NORTON

ASIMOV, Isaac. Pebble in the Sky. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1950. Octavo, original beige cloth, original pictorial dust jacket.

First edition of Asimov’s first novel, from the collection of his fellow Grand Master André Norton, with her bookplate, inscribed to her by the author, “For André, whose cooking is superb, Isaac Asimov.”

“In 1947, at the time Asimov was writing the first draft of what would later turn into Pebble in the Sky, there were very few full-length science fiction books? Pebble in the Sky was published on January 19, 1950. It received a number of reviews, most of which were favorable, and it began to sell well from day one” (White, Asimov: The Unauthorized Life, pp. 120-8). “A sentimental favorite among Asimov’s fans, but significant also as a transitional step between the relatively miserly world of Golden Age pulps and the relatively lucrative world of mainstream book publication” (Anatomy of Wonder II-51). Currey, 14. “For five decades [Asimov’s] was the voice to which science fiction came down in the end. His was the default voice of science fiction” (Clute & Nicholls, 58). Appropriately, then, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named Asimov a “Grand Master” in 1987. André Norton had received this distinction, the genre’s highest honor, four years previously. Norton is perhaps best known for her popular “Witch World” series. “Her disinclination to publish short material in the science fiction magazines and her labeling for decades as a juvenile writer both worked to delay proper recognition of her stature, though her actual sales have been very considerable for decades? Norton’s 100 or more books? are for very many readers central to what the genre has to offer” (Clute & Nicholls, 878). With Norton’s illustrated bookplate.

Book fine with faint foxing and offsetting to endpapers. Scarce original dust jacket about-fine with light toning to spine, two short closed tears, front panel bright. An exceptional copy of an elusive first edition, particularly desirable inscribed by one Grand Master to another.