George O. Smith
1949
This is it. This book is the biggest single reason I started collecting Gnome Press. I had not long started to collect 1st edition SF, one of my first being Iceworld by Hal Clement. I had never heard of GP before acquiring that particular book, so I ran a search on eBay for ‘Gnome Press’ and this book – Pattern for Conquest – was the first result I got back. I remember being captured by the cover art, somehow being enthralled by it’s age… it had a special something that made me burn for Gnome Press. I’m waxing a bit lyrical here, suffice to say that it all really began here, and now I finally have a copy of the book that got the Gnome Press ball rolling. It’s the best condition copy I have ever seen, but it does have one solitary significant flaw. Lets have a look.
Beautiful. I just love the art that came out of Gnome Press once they got away from their few fantasy titles and before the obvious decline of the mid-late ’50s. A little shelf wear to the upper right part of the cover and just the odd nick and wear around the edges. The flaw is quite evident here – sunning on the spine. It was mentioned in the description, though it’s still a little more severe than I expected.
Boards are nice. A bit of bumping on the corners, but not really an issue. There is one other thing to point out, it’s a bit hard to make out and it’s more pronounced on the back, but there is a couple of centimeters of lightening down the front edge of the boards. Looks like it may have seen a bit of sun sans jacket at some point.
The views from the top and bottom reveal no surprises.
The jacket edges are nice. Some slight age-toning of the block, but quite negligible. You can see what looks like a water stain on the bottom of the block – it’s not. It’s actually a light scratch.
You can see the jacket is very nice here, not much rubbing and practically no chipping. The head and tail of the spine are very sound also. The sunning however, is very noticeable in this view. I’ve highlighted the two tones of orange.
A couple of interesting items of trivia regarding this dust jacket. Briefly, a correction had to be made to the title on the spine (hence the odd white square) and ‘Minions of Mars’ (a never-published book) is listed on the back.
Check out the Trivia Page for more detail regarding these.
The rear of the jacket is beautiful and clean, rounding out a book in excellent condition.
Year: 1949
Paid: $38
Art: Edd Cartier is credited on the jacket flap and in Eshbach, though I have seen Hannes Bok mentioned as the artist variously around the Internet. I don’t know why that might be.
Quantity: 5000 copies. 3000 in hardcover, 2000 paperback armed forces issues.
Binding: Orange cloth with darker spine and front board lettering.
GP Edition Notes: 1st edition so stated.
Comments: Like ‘Cosmic Engineers’, I paid a reasonable price for a copy in this condition. A bit unfortunate though with the sunning on the spine downgrading this to Near Fine. Still, I’m very pleased with it. A desire fulfilled.
Expand Upon: wikipedia.com, Internet Speculative Fiction Database
You can see it’s in fantastic condition. Absolutely beautiful cover art by classic pulp artist Edd Cartier. With garments off it looks equally good.
Beautiful cloth binding – the very desirable Currey priority ‘A’. Much more attractive than the tan colored boards of the ‘B’ binding. I just love the rocket stamped on the front there. Super. From the top and bottom it looks great too.
Very, very little discoloration to the block. Inside is nice and white too. Practically no wear to the edges of the boards also. If we take a close in view of the head and tail, you might detect the issue that the jacket has.
The pinkish color on the leading edge in the tail view is a reflection and not coloration or wear on the jacket. The head and tail of the binding shows a small amount of bruising. The problem I mentioned earlier might be visible here to someone with a keen eye. Can you pick it up?? No?? Then have a look at this:
See it now?? Blue ink. The jacket has been touched up along most edges. I must admit, it’s a pretty good job – all but invisible to a casual inspection. I wonder when it was done?? I’m really going to highlight it now.
I took this pic under the most unflattering lighting. It really is visible now. Again, the leading edge of the jacket shows a reflection and not wear. I must get some proper strobes sometimes so I can avoid that. Anyway, the touch-ups on the jacket kind of disappointed me, but even so it’s still in great condition.
The back is very nice, a little soiling from shelf-wear, but no problem.
Nice impression of a couple of stars there, and at the bottom of the spine…
..you can see an impression of the men going up against them. Lovely. Unfortunately, the wear and soiling is also quite visible here. It looks more like dirt than anything, I wonder if this could be cleaned. Anyone have any ideas??
Actually, I’m not sure whether it’s dust or foxing. In any event, it’s only evident on the edges of the paper, internally the pages are quite nice. No age browning at all. The spine sits nice and square despite being a bit on the loose side.
Which leads us to have a closer look at the worst instances of the chipping and splitting.
Looks like a bit of moisture has gotten in at some point too. You can see the front paste-down is a bit mottled and darkened. This is true on the rear paste-down too, and both exhibit a bit of foxing.
A price is written on the front free end-paper. I wonder when… It’s the same price that the book originally cost. I mentioned earlier about this being a first state jacket. I’m pretty sure this is true as the GP books promoted for sale on the rear of the jacket all precede this one. The two that are advertised as ‘forthcoming’ are the two immediately after this.
As you can see, the back is quite clean though there is a bit of rubbing apparent in the area at the top right.
The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey 