"THIS IS THE STORY OF RHYSLING, THE BLIND SINGER OF THE SPACEWAYS—BUT NOT THE OFFICIAL VERSION": FIRST EDITION OF THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH

HEINLEIN, Robert A. The Green Hills of Earth. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, (1951). Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. $850.

First book-form edition of these stories in Heinlein's influential "Future History" sequence.

Heinlein "probably influenced the development of science fiction more than any other writer" (Gerald Jonas). The Green Hills of Earth—like his collection of the previous year, The Man Who Sold the Moon—gathers Heinlein's stories from Astounding Science-Fiction that fit into his "Future History" sequence (charted on both volumes' pictorial endpapers): "As a device for tying together otherwise disparate stories… Heinlein's outline of the future was an extraordinarily acute idea" (Clute & Nicholls, 554). Heinlein considered the title piece one of his strongest, referencing it in many of his other works and selecting it as his entry for the collection My Best Science Fiction Story; "The Green Hills of Earth" was also the first science fiction ever published in The Saturday Evening Post, marking a significant expansion of the genre's audience. The book also includes "Delilah and the Space-Rigger," "The Black Pit of Luna," the novella "Logic of Empire" and seven more. Currey, 191.

Tiny nick to cloth of front joint, book clean and tight; dust jacket with slightest of edge wear and faint smudges to back panel. A near-fine copy.