Today I received in the mail three different packages of old book-dom.

One box with not just bubble wrap but actual cotton inside held an old Book Club Edition of This Island Earth—I saw the film maybe 25 years ago, so on general principle I figured I might as well give the book a try.  It definitely won’t be today or tomorrow, but I’ll get around to it sometime.

One puffy envelope from Canada held a lovely UK Pan edition of The Puppet Masters with a cover reminiscent of—but not by, since the initials in the painting appear to be “GA”—Boris Vallejo.

Finally, a flat and sturdy little box held December 1951 Famous Fantastic Mysteries that has a reprint of “ ‘—And He Built a Crooked House,’ ” which of course first appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction in February 1941.

A nice evening’s haul, and now the Heinlein are scanned, and posted to the appropriate pages in my Heinlein Cover Art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Yesterday the mail brought a nice old Beyond This Horizon I had ordered, an early Grosset & Dunlap reprint of the Fantasy Press edition with dark but evocative cover by someone named Donnell.

Beyond This Horizon first was published in April and May 1942 in Astounding Science-Fiction, of course, illustrated then by Hubert Rogers.  Those printings are shown on my “Pulp Magazines” page.  After the war it was published in book form by Fantasy Press, and then by Grosset & Dunlap.

The two-tone painting here shows a future of soft parkland and soaring skyscrapers with arched bridges of white concrete...with an hourglass superimposed, in the bottom of which a toddler plays at piling up sand.  The book itself is a bit light in weight, as if made of cheaper materials, and the dust jacket has some little chunks missing at the edges.  Still, for its age, that’s not too bad, and the piece really was a great find.

See it on on the “Earlier Adult Works” page of my Heinlein Cover Art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

A couple of days ago I received the beautiful Earle Bergey-covered October 1947 Thrilling Wonder Stories containing Heinlein’s “Jerry Was a Man,” the 8 February 1947 Saturday Evening Post with “The Green Hills of Earth,” and the September and October 1951 Blue Book with Between Planets serialized as Planets in Combat—these latter each also contained 8 or 10 lovely interior illustrations by Brendan Lynch.

Yesterday I got a nice vintage Door into Summer with a charmingly bold cover by Mel Hunter.

Then today a few newer paperbacks arrived: a British Assignment in Eternity with an interesting techno-treehouse sort of cover, a Rick Sternback Starman Jones, and a Man Who Sold the Moon with a bright and mildly humorous John Melo painting.

All now are scanned to the appropriate pages in my “Heinlein Cover Art” galleries, so now you may enjoy, too!

​Rafeeq

Yesterday I stopped in to Curious Books in East Lansing—it had been a whopping six weeks or so, right?  What could be the harm?

Well, I did see a few books of interest here and there, but I was actually thinking I would just hang loose and save my pennies for another day...until I saw the old Heinlein pulps, namely “Beyond This Horizon” from Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1942 and May 1942.  Only the first cover depicted Heinlein, while the second depicted an A.E. Van Vogt, but both, however, had pen-and-ink interiors by Hubert Rogers as well.

These lovely artifacts from a lifetime ago are hard for me to resist.  I did not resist, therefore.

And then as I was checking out, Ray Walsh, the proprietor, who apparently knows his marks just a tad too well, asked if I had seen this old library copy of the Scribner’s juvie Citizen of the Galaxy.  Deftly he conjured it from somewhere around his credit card machine, and yet, pointedly, before he had run my card...  ’Twas significantly cheaper than the non-library edition I already saw, but sort of still real money.  There was a 20% off sale, though, so oh, well.

I scanned all covers and, for those huge old pulps, interiors as well.  Citizen of the Galazy is now on my Scribner’s YA/Juveniles page, and the Astounding with “Beyond This Horizon” are on my Pulp Magazines page.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

A few weeks ago at Curious Books I picked up a couple beautiful old Astounding Science-Fiction pulps from 1942, containing Heinlein’s “Goldfish Bowl” and “Waldo.”

While I had immediately scanned those covers, it wasn’t until today that I got around to scanning their interior pen-and-ink art: 3 by Kramer for the Anson MacDonald-pseudonym “Goldfish Bowl” and 7 by Orban for “Waldo.”

These two issues of Astounding are huge—as big as the Unknown in my collection—and that makes scanning of interiors a tad easier.  All are posted to the Pulp Magazines page of my site.

Fans of old SF art, enjoy!

Rafeeq

Yesterday I needed to go to Curious Books in East Lansing to pick up a couple stray Bradbury collections for a big text on Ray Bradbury I'll be putting together for next year—which perhaps should be another post in itself, come to think of it—when I figured that as long as I was in, I should check for any Heinlein of interest, too...

Upstairs I found a nice first-edition hardcover of Expanded Universe and a newer edition of Time Enough for Love with quite a decent cover illustration.  But then downstairs—ah, downstairs!—I found two beautiful old Heinlein pulps: “Waldo” from August 1942 and “Goldfish Bowl” from March 1942,  Both have lovely covers by Hubert Rogers, though only the one for “Waldo” (pictured here) depicts the Heinlein story, the other one depicting an A.E. Van Vogt.

I should comment that the Astounding each also have several interior line drawings of their Heinlein stories.  I haven't yet taken the plunge on those, though, as that will entail a significant amount of very finicky work with these almost three-quarter-century-old magazines.  But right now at least the books are their appropriate pages, and the magazine covers are on my “Pulp Magazines” page.

Enjoy!

​Rafeeq

Well, on the day after Thanksgiving I stopped in to Curious Books in East Lansing, and in addition to a big hardcover collecting the last three juveniles (Have Space Suit—Will Travel, Starship Troopers, and Podkayne of Mars), I also picked up the first installment of The Puppet Masters from Galaxy in 1951.

The cover of the collection harks back nicely to the Emshwiller work on Have Space Suit—Will Travel, and although the perspective is a tad confusing on the Galaxy cover by Don Sibley, it otherwise is very nice, too.  I scanned the interior art of The Puppet Masters, and then, now that I have more experience on the pulps, I also went back and scanned the all the van Dongen interiors of the installments of Citizen of the Galaxy I have from my 1957 Astoundings.

All-up, this was a good dozen and a half interiors, plus the two covers.  The Outward Bound collection is on my Scribner’s YA page, while the others are on my Serializations page.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Recently I also picked up a couple nice illustrated books of space/SF art, which I have filed on my Science Fiction/Science Fact page—good stuff, including some Chesley Bonestell, whose work is never less than absolutely gorgeous.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Imagine my surprise a little while ago, when poking around Curious Books in East Lansing, suddenly to run across three nice old copies of the beautiful pulp Unknown containing early Heinlein stories: “Magic, Inc.,” “They,” and “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.”  Ah, what a find!

Unknown is a huge magazine, by the way, a bit bigger than a 9.5x11-inch sheet of paper, and they are richly illustrated—“They” has only one drawing, but it is absolutely perfect, while “Hoag” has a whopping 10 drawings!

I also picked up “Sky Lift”—cover pictured here—plus the first half of “Gulf” and yet another variation of the Darrell K. Sweet cover of The Star Beast.  I had passed on that extra Sweet on another couple of earlier trips, actually, but I finally caved, since this red-background version indeed is an interesting change from the green-background example I already had...

In any event, all now are scanned and thence posted in my Heinlein cover art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

A while ago I picked up some more goodies at Curious Books: the May 1941 Astounding with “Universe,” plus a very nice first edition hardcover of Friday.  Also, in looking over some stuff, I belatedly realized that “ ‘—We Also Walk Dogs’,” under the Anson MacDonald pseudonym, is in the July 1941 issue, which I already had...  It was time, therefore, for some scanning, wasn’t it?  I did so, and now that pristine Friday is cataloged on the “Later Works” page, while the others are in “Pulp Magazines.”

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Well, I went to Curious Books in East Lansing again, and I ended up picking up a few more nice old Heinlein pulps from 1941...  After scanning them—and not even yet getting to the interior art of “Methuselah’s Children,” come to think of it—I suddenly realized that I had a full fifty pics.  Rather than keep them in the “Early Works” page, therefore, I finally broke down and created a new page solely for them: “Pulp Magazines.”

I am so happy to have these in my collection, and I hope that you, too, you may enjoy their art posted here.

Rafeeq