MIKE MARS AT CAPE CANAVERAL Donald A. Wollheim 1961 1st Edition Sci-Fi HC/DJ

Description: MIKE MARS AT CAPE CANAVERAL by Donald A. Wollheim. Vintage Science fiction.Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc. in 1961, 1st Edition.Hardcover with Dust Jacket, 187 pages with illustrations. Measures 8 1/2" by 5 5/8". Excellent near fine condition. Appears never read, spine is unbroken. No wear to cover, corners are sharp. Slight wear to dust jacket.This book is the third in the Mike Mars series and was renamed "Mike Mars at Cape Kennedy" when it was republished in 1968. Donald Allen Wollheim (1914 – 1990) was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell, Martin Pearson, Darrell G. Raynor, and others. A founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th-century United States. Ursula K. Le Guin called Wollheim "the tough, reliable editor of Ace Books, when he published her first two novels in Ace Double editions. The 1979 first edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls Wollheim "one of the first and most vociferous Sci-Fi fans." He published numerous fanzines and co-edited the early Fanciful Tales of Time and Space. His importance to early fandom is chronicled in the 1974 book The Immortal Storm by Sam Moskowitz and in the 1977 book The Futurians by Damon Knight. Wollheim organized an event later considered the first American science fiction convention, when a group from New York met with a group from Philadelphia on October 22, 1936, in Philadelphia. The modern Philcon convention claims descent from this event. An interesting note: Prior to the 1960s, no large American paperback publisher would publish fantasy. It was believed that there was no public demand for it and that it would not sell. Wollheim published an unauthorized paperback edition of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in three volumes. It was the first mass-market paperback edition of Tolkien's epic. In a 2006 interview his daughter, Betsy Wollheim, said: "When he called Tolkien in 1964 and asked if he could publish The Lord of the Rings as Ace paperbacks, Tolkien said he would never allow his great works to appear in so 'degenerate a form' as the paperback book. Wollheim was one of the fathers of the entire paperback industry, since before he spearheaded the Ace line, he was the originating editor-in-chief of the Avon paperback list in 1945, so he took this personally. He was very offended. He discovered a loophole in the copyright. Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien's American hardcover publisher, had neglected to protect the work in the United States. So, incensed by Tolkien's response, he realized that he could legally publish them and did. This brash action was really the Big Bang that founded the modern fantasy field. He did pay Tolkien, and he was responsible for making not only Tolkien but Ballantine Books extremely wealthy."

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End Time: 2024-05-17T18:33:20.000Z

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