THE MERCURY ASTRONAUTS: FIRST EDITION OF WE SEVEN, INSCRIBED BY JOHN GLENN

CARPENTER, M. Scott, COOPER, L. Gordon, Jr., GLENN, John H., Jr., GRISSOM, Virgil I., SCHIRRA, Walter M., Jr., SHEPARD, Alan B., Jr., SLAYTON, Donald K. We Seven. By the Astronauts Themselves. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962. Octavo, original black cloth, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket. $2900.

First edition of this comprehensive and engaging first-hand account of the genesis of America's manned space program, inscribed "To J— John Glenn," richly illustrated with photographs, in original dust jacket.

"The first seven American astronauts were an admirable group of individuals chosen to sit at the apex of a pyramid of human effort… In volunteering to entrust their lives to Mercury's spirit and Atlas' strength to blaze a trail for man into the empyrean, they chose to lead by following the opportunity that chance, circumstance, technology and history had prepared for them" (Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander, 164-65). This volume offers a cohesive chronicle of the beginnings of American manned space exploration from the perspectives of the those who pioneered it, with each member of Project Mercury contributing at least three essay-length sections. Containing numerous black-and-white photographic illustrations, color photographic endpapers and title page. This copy is inscribed by Mercury astronaut John Glenn, the third American in space and the first to orbit the earth. He later served as a U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1974 to 1999.

A fine copy.