“DOMINATED THE GENRE IN A WAY NO MAGAZINE BEFORE OR SINCE COULD MATCH”: EXTRAORDINARY RUN OF ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, NEARLY 200 VINTAGE ISSUES FROM 1938-1959, ENCOMPASSING THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION, WITH CLASSIC STORIES BY ASIMOV, HEINLEIN, “DOC” SMITH, VAN VOGT AND MORE, PUBLISHED BY LEGENDARY EDITOR JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.
(ASIMOV, Isaac; HEINLEIN, Robert et al.). Astounding Science Fiction. New York: Street & Smith Publications, 1938-39 (partial); 1942; 1944-45; 1947-48; 1950-55; 1958-59 . 192 vintage issues, most digest size (5-1/2 by 7-1/2 inches), 36 pulp size (6-1/2 by 9-1/2 inches), 12 letter size (8-1/2 by 11-1/2 inches); original pictorial paper wrappers, staple-bound as issued.
Vintage and substantial run of Astounding Science Fiction magazine from science fiction’s Golden Age, including the years 1938-39 in part and, in full, all but six years between 1940-59: 192 original issues in excellent condition, including stories by such genre giants as Asimov (including the first appearance of all three Laws of Robotics), Heinlein, Sturgeon, van Vogt, Lester del Rey, E.E. Smith and more, as well as such key post-war authors as Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert and Robert Silverberg, all published during the groundbreaking editorial tenure of John W. Campbell, Jr., who, “more than any other individual… helped shape modern science fiction.” An essential acquisition for any science fiction library.
In 1937, John W. Campbell, Jr. "was second only to E.E. Smith, Ph.D., as a popular writer of space opera" (ANB), but he would begin to make his most significant contribution to science fiction when he became editor of Astounding Stories that autumn (the first issue for which he had full responsibility was January 1938). He changed the magazine's title to Astounding Science-Fiction in March 1938 (the earliest issue in this lot). He then filled its pages with authors who, following his steady and creative lead, shaped the Golden Age of Science Fiction: the years roughly corresponding to World War II in which "the wild and yearning imaginations of a handful of genre writers—who were mostly very young and conceptually very energetic indeed—laid down entire strata of sf [i.e., science fiction] motifs which enriched the field greatly. In those years the science component of sf became spectacularly more scientific and the fiction component more assured. It was a quantum jump in quality, perhaps the greatest in the history of the genre" (Clute & Nicholls, 507).
Contributions from one luminous sf author after another appear in these issues, including many first publications of stories now regarded as genre benchmarks. Lester del Rey's first story, "The Faithful," appears in April 1938; Robert Heinlein's, A.E. van Vogt's and Theodore Sturgeon's first stories "in that annus mirabilis, 1939" (Anatomy of Wonder, 46; respectively, "Life-Line," August; "Black Destroyer," July; "Ether Breather," September). "Campbell's instructions to his writers were refreshing: Write a story that could be published as a contemporary tale in a magazine published in the 25th century" (Anatomy of Wonder, 46).
July 1939 saw Isaac Asimov's debut in
Astounding ("Trends," only his third story to be published). Asimov is well-represented in this lot. His classic story "Nightfall" is the September 1941 cover story. Several of his seminal Robot stories appear (including "Runaround," March 1942, which marks the first appearance of all Three Laws of Robotics in a single story), as do many of his star-spanning, far-future "Foundation" stories (beginning with "Foundation" itself in May 1942). Heinlein, too, established a regular presence, both under his own name and his pseudonym, Anson MacDonald. Novelettes by both Heinlein and "MacDonald" fill the bulk of some issues (for example, May and October 1941). Several stories in Heinlein's influential Future History sequence appeared in 1940 alone: "Requiem" (January), "If This Goes On—" (February-March), "The Roads Must Roll" (June) and "Blowups Happen" (September). L. Sprague de Camp, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore (one of the genre's earliest, pioneering female authors), Murray Leinster, Clifford D. Simak, Jack Williamson, Hal Clement and Eric Frank Russell all also joined Campbell's dependable stable of writers. Even Ray Bradbury, not an
Astounding regular, makes a brief appearance, contributing the "flash fiction" "Eat, Drink and Be Wary" as part of the "Probability Zero!" department in July 1942.
Several classic sf novels first appeared in serial form in Astounding. The present issues contain Van Vogt's Slan, the saga of super-evolved humans that proved so influential on nascent sf fandom (September-December 1940); Heinlein's Methuselah's Children (July-September 1941); Asimov's The Currents of Space, from his Galactic Empire series; (October-December 1952); and three of "Doc" Smith's famed "super-science" epics, Gray Lensman (October 1939-January 1940), Second Stage Lensmen (November 194-February 1942) and Children of the Lens (November 1947-February 1948).
In addition to its impressive roster of talent, Astounding is also remembered for its "predictive record" regarding the atomic bomb. "In 1941, Heinlein's 'Solution Unsatisfactory' [under the MacDonald name, May] asked what must happen to politics and foreign policy when a weapon of war is developed against which there can be no defense. In 1942, Lester del Rey's 'Nerves' [September] debated the ethics of covering up a potential worse-than-Chernobyl disaster in a nuclear power plant. In [March] 1944, Cleve Cartmill's 'Deadline'… was so precise in detailing how a uranium bomb could be detonated that it prompted Army counterintelligence to investigate whether anyone of the Manhattan Project had been talking. Then in [February] 1945, before the war in Europe was over, 'The Piper's Son' by Henry Knutter and C.L. Moore, was set in a post-nuclear world of independent city-states, each capable of dusting off any one of the others—a smaller-scaled version of the 'balance of terror' that would become the actual foundation of post-bomb U.S-Soviet relations" (Anatomy of Wonder, 50-51).
Although Astounding's unchallenged dominance of science fiction did not continue after World War II, it still published content of enduring significance. For example, readers consistently rank Tom Godwin's classic "The Cold Equations" (August 1954) among the genre's top dozen or so tales. A year earlier, in June 1953, Philip K. Dick's "Impostor," one of his best-known short stories, first saw print. James Blish, Frank Herbert, James Gunn, Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson and Robert Silverberg all placed stories in Astounding during the 1950s. Also of note, L. Ron Hubbard's fist article on Dianetics, the basis for his religion of Scientology, appeared in the May 1950 issue. In 1960, Astounding was rechristened Analog Science Fact & Fiction, and is still published under that title today.
With engrossing content by multiple masters of the genre; frequently enchanting cover and interior art by such notable space artists as Chesley Bonestell, van Dongen and Frank Kelly Freas; science fact articles by Asimov, Willy Ley and others presenting then-cutting edge knowledge and speculation about such subjects as chemistry, rocketry and nuclear radiation; and vintage advertising exhorting readers to buy war bonds and plant victory gardens, to chew Wrigley's spearmint gum and to listen to The Shadow radio show, this altogether impressive collection of Astounding transports readers to the heyday of a quintessentially American literary genre—as well as to (in the promise of house ad copy from 1951) "the days of the Galactic Empire… the ships of the first Interstellar Expedition… in a million could-be years, on a thousand may-be worlds… We're a Time Machine for sale… the doorway to Infinity and Eternity." "Astounding dominated the genre in a way no magazine before or since could match…. More than any other individual, [Campbell] helped to shape modern sf" (Clute & Nicholls, 187-88).
Occasional contemporary ownership signatures and inscriptions to wrappers and first leaves.
These vintage issues have survived in remarkably excellent condition. The earliest issues display wear and loss to spine ends and occasional loss to wrappers; some of the issues from the 1940s exhibit mild dampstaining. Issues from 1948 on are in generally fine condition, with clean interiors and bright, only lightly rubbed wrappers. Finding Golden Age pulp magazines in such collectible condition, especially in such substantial runs, is exceedingly difficult. An outstanding and extremely desirable collection.