The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey

Nelson Bond
1949

Condition-wise, this is the best GP book I have, unread by the looks of it.  I doubt I will find another title this good either (but I hope I do).  However, I am led to believe that quite a few copies of this book were remaindered, so there is an unusual amount of fine examples floating around.  I just got a bit of provenance back from Jack at S & S Books:

…we purchased them in November 1977 from F & SF Book Co. Inc., Staten Island, NY.  They seemed to have been affiliated with Donald M. Grant, Pub. Inc., Hampton Falls,  NH.  Somehow they discovered and acquired a cache of these previously published books and sold them to retailers such as us.

Interesting.  Regarding this copy, there is nothing really to say, the pictures say it all.  I’ll allow them to talk, so sit back, listen and enjoy what they impart, though I will interrupt them but once.

Ok, I’ll just interrupt briefly.  You can see some slight scuffing on the dust jacket towards the top of the spine.  The photo enhances this quite significantly, in actual fact this is barely noticeable in real life.

It arrived without a jacket protector.  I photographed it before I put one on and it made a big difference to the results.  I wish I could do them all like this, but it’s safer to leave the protectors on in most cases.

Year: 1949
Paid: $40
Art: James Gibson
Quantity: 5000 + 100 Limited Edition + 12 Special Limited Edition copies reserved for Nelson Bond. Currey claims an Armed Forces paperback edition was produced in 1952 – probably 1000 copies.
Binding: Burgundy cloth with darker burgundy lettering on the spine and cover.  Currey claims black lettering – the copy I have is practically new as you can see and it doesn’t look black to me.  Currey also states that the 12 SLE copies were with slipcase and sans dust jacket and the remaining 100 LE were in dust jackets and most if not all were without slipcase
GP Edition Notes: 1st Edition
Comments: The block is pristine and white.  Nothing else to add, a superb copy.
Expand Upon: wikipedia.com, Internet Speculative Fiction Database

This entry was posted on April 8, 2009 at 12:34 pm and is filed under 1949, Close Up with tags James Gibson, Nelson Bond, The Thirty-First of February. 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.