BEYOND THE PLANET EARTH ... Translated by Kenneth Syers by Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin - 1960.

New York: Pergamon Press, Inc., 1960.. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First edition in English, U.S. issue. A translation of VNE ZEMLI, an interplanetary novel written at the turn-of-the-century and first published in in PRIRODA I LYUDI in 1916, and in book form in 1920, with expanded text. This 1960 English translation has a sixteen-page biographical introduction by B. N. Vorobyev. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) was the grandfather of Russian rocketry. "He began investigating the possibility of space flight in 1878 ... He wrote a good deal of didactic SF, mostly for young readers, in order to popularize his ideas ... [His novel BEYOND THE PLANET EARTH is an] account of the building and launching of a spaceship by an international group of scientists, who begin the construction of space habitats in high orbit, and who then begin to explore the solar system itself, with a view to its colonization. Tsiolkovsky was the first great pioneer of space research and the first real prophet of the myth of the conquest of space which has played such a vital role in modern SF." - SFE (online). Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 2-109. Suvin, Russian Science Fiction, p. 29. Reginald 14256. A fine copy in very good or better dust jacket with mild wear at spine ends and along top edge of front panel. A lovely copy and scarce thus. (#160289)