ISLANDS IN THE SKY - UNCORRECTED PROOF COPY
Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1952. First Edition. Item #7799
First Printing, a proof copy, with "Special Review Copy" rubber-stamped in red on the half-title page. Octavo (21.5cm); publisher's folded and gathered sheets, sewn along the spine, with the endpapers glued onto first and final leaves; dustjacket; xiv,209,[1]pp. A fresh, Fine copy. In the dustjacket designed by Alex Schomburg, priced $2.00, with 10 titles on the rear panel, folded by the publisher to fit this proof; some pinpoint wear to spine ends, trivial dustiness to rear panel, else very Near Fine.
An early Clarke title, part of the Winston Science Fiction series for juvenile readers. "As his prize for winning a television quiz show in the second half of the 21st century, Roy Malcolm goes to an orbiting space station. There he has adventures involving space pirates, the making of a space film, and a runaway rocket ship. The strength of the book, despite its publication date, is in the details, all plausibly explained, of the procedures of space travel and life on an orbiting station...As an adventure story, routine; as an investigation into the required technology necessary for space travel, exceptional" (Barron, Anatomy of Wonder II-251). Rare in the proof state, doubly so in the dustjacket. 7799.
Price: $2,750.00