8vo. Original pictorial wraps (rubbing).

FIRST EDITION OF CLARKE'S FIRST NOVEL, SIGNED BY CLARKE. Prelude to Space was first published as a paperback by World Editions, Inc. for its Galaxy Science Fiction series. Two years later it was republished as a hardcover by Sidgwick & Jackson in London and later that year by the Gnome Press in the United States. The first full-length novel to be published by Clarke, Prelude to Space set the stage for a career that would see him lauded, alongside Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, as one of the three most significant science fiction authors of the twentieth century.