Thoughts on Space Travel

 

Clarke, Arthur C.

Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics

London: Temple Press, (1950). First edition. Small 8vo. 164 pages.

First edition of the first book by the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, inscribed to a noted rocket scientist: "To Fred, with all best wishes and many happy memories of London, 1951 / Arthur Clarke." 

$2,000

[Scan of inscription follows after the jump]

Fred is Frederick C. Durant III, an engineer and Navy test pilot who served as president of the American Rocket Society and of the International Astronautical Federation in the 1950s. Before becoming an assistant director of the National Air and Space Museum (part of the Smithsonian Institution), he worked for Bell Aircraft, the Naval Air Rocket Test Station, and the Maynard Ordnance Test Station. He later became assistant director of astronautics for the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. A terrific association copy. A set of six postcards published during the Second International Congress on Aeronautics, which was held in London in 1951, accompanies the book. One of the images reprints an illustration from this book. The book is very good in a chipped dust jacket that is heavily repaired on the back (verso) with tape. The book is still quite presentable in its jacket protector.

$2,000