The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey

Robert Silverberg
1958

Nice.  There’s not much really to say about this book.  The pictures speak for themselves.  The cover is beautiful and white, though perhaps a little yellowed on the spine.  No tearing or noticeable scuffing.  The attractive cover art looks good too – my wife admired it, so it must be…

Likewise the boards are great.  A little bruising on the spine extremities, but no problem.

A closer look at the spine extremities reveals that it really is in great condition.  Note the dust jacket is pristine here.  Super.

There are a couple of things I have questions about.  One is the trimming of the dust jacket.

You can se it’s trimmed mighty close to the text on the flaps.  This is evident in all four locations.  It’s clearly not where a library covering has been trimmed off the jacket (which is the first thing that came to mind)  as I have also seen this on another copy of this book.  I think it must be a mismatch between the dimensions of the dust jacket and the book itself – not all GP books are the same height; they do vary slightly.  So I think they printed the jackets thinking the books were going to be slightly taller and they required a bit of trimming to make them fit.

The other thing is the trimming of the block.

Aside from the typical Gnome Press browning, you can see some rough edges there.  Does anyone know what causes this??  I have seen this on many first edition books.  I am tempted to say in this case it is probably a dull guillotine blade that has torn the pages.  But in others it looks like they just didn’t trim the leaves that came from the edges of the printed block.

Year: 1958
Paid: $23
Art: Stan Mack
Quantity: 5000  (2000 remaindered).
Binding: Currey priority ‘A’ binding – Dark blue boards with yellow lettering to spine.
GP Edition Notes: 1st edition so stated on copyright page.
Comments: Great price for a book in excellent condition. Any illumination on the trimming of the flaps and block would be greatly appreciated.
Expand Upon: wikipedia.com, Internet Speculative Fiction Database

This entry was posted on February 24, 2009 at 9:56 pm and is filed under 1958, Close Up with tags Robert Silverberg, Stan Mack, Starman's Quest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.