Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
ROBERT HEINLEIN. ROCKET SHIP GALILEO (signed on laid in signature). CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 1947.
Price: US$1595.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First Edition, First impression Beautiful book with the original first printing dust jacket. Boldly SIGNED by Robert Heinlein in vibrant blue ink on a cut signature adhered to the half title page. ROCKET SHIP GALILEO was Heinlein?s first published novel, and a hallmark science fiction book described as follows: ROCKET SHIP GALILEO is ?the first US juvenile sf novel to reflect the new levels of characterization, style and scientific plausibility now expected in the field . it was the first in a series that represents the most important contribution any single writer has made to children?s sf .? ? Clute and Nicholls (eds.), The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1993), pp. 554-57. ?A pioneering novel that began American mainstream science fiction for children and combined young protagonists, gadgetry, current science, and adventure in such a way that even today the book retains interest.? ? Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 5-62. The book is in great condition with black boards, and green titles to spine with a green rocket ship to front board. The book is signed in vibrant blue ink by Robert Heinlein on a signature cut which is laid and adhered to the half title page. The boards are clean with slightly rounded corners and no edgewear. The binding is tight and square. The end papers are clean with no owner names, no inscriptions and no book plates. The internal pages are clean, and flat with No marks, No bent pages, No foxing and no stains. Beautiful clean book with several fun illustrations. Please see detailed images. The original price clipped dust jacket has benefited from some restoration and presents beautifully with a faint spot of rubbing to the front flap crease. The dust jacket has strong bright vibrant colors with No edgewear, No rips, No chips, No stains, No fading, No foxing and No rubbing. Please see multiple images. A handsome Science Fiction highlight classic, scarce signed. Presents well on the shelf! ADDITIONAL IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. Please see our Abe store for other rare and signed SciFi titles
Seller: Meier And Sons Rare Books, New Canaan, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$7750.00 + shipping
Description: This is a signed first edition, first printing of the first novel published by one of the twentieth centurys pioneering and preeminent science fiction authors. The author signed "Robert A. Heinlein" immediately below his printed name on the title page. First printing is confirmed by the Scribners "A" on the copyright page and the unclipped "$2.00" price on the upper front flap confirms first issue of the dust jacket. Condition of the volume is near fine, the jacket very good. The illustrated cloth binding is square, clean, and tight with nicely rounded spine and sharp corners. Shelf wear to extremities is trivial, including a few tiny dings to the edges and minor wrinkling to the spine ends. The contents are notably clean, with only the mildest age-toning, no spotting, and no previous owner marks apart from the authors signature. Even the page edges remain unblemished. The dust jacket is substantially complete, fractional loss confined to the upper joints and flap fold corners. The unfaded spine shows no color shift between it and the front face. We note light overall scuffing and a short, closed tear with associated wrinkling to the bottom edge of the front face. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.Beginning with this, his first published book, Heinlein spent his early career establishing what we now call the "young adult" market in science fiction. Heinleins so-called "Juveniles" ran to a dozen novels published before 1959. Starting with Rocket Ship Galileo, Heinleins early novels earned him the reputation, material security, and literary confidence to infuse his subsequent work with more complex and controversial cultural, political, and philosophical perspectives. However, not all of Heinleins "Juveniles" were quite so juvenile, and the line of demarcation between Heinleins more and less serious works blurs.As implausibly simple as the plot for Rocket Ship Galileo may seem a trio of teenage boys helping a scientist build an atomic rocket and pilot it to the moon even here there are the seeds of future Heinlein, including more than passing attention to actual science, as well as subversive socio-political elements. Offering useful perspective on Heinleins literary precocity, in the late 1940s, at the embryonic beginning of the space age, the story was originally considered "too far out" for publication. Rocket Ship Galileo became a basis for the 1950 film Destination Moon (with Heinlein contributing to the script), and the beginning of Heinleins illustrious career as a defining novelist in the genre.Robert Anson Heinlein (1907-1988) was one of the "Big Three" mid-twentieth century "Golden Age" science fiction writers, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer with a career spanning half a century, Heinlein published more than 30 novels, along with numerous short stories and collections. He was already an established and successful author in the genre when he won his first Hugo Award for Double Star in 1956. He would be recognized thus three more times for Starship Troopers in 1960, for Stranger in a Strange Land in 1961, and for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in 1966. Noticeable in his early writing but particularly prevalent after Starship Troopers, Heinlein used his novels to provoke thought and limn his own perspectives about the role, limitations, and confining structures of society, the obligations of citizenship, and the prerogatives of freedom. Heinlein was lauded not just for individual stories, but also for weaving coherent speculative futures with themes and characters that spanned swathes of his writing over decades. Heinleins "Future History" series was nominated for a Best All-Time Series Hugo Award in a very strong field in 1966, losing (along with fellow nominee The Lord of the Rings) to Asimovs Foundation series. Fittingly, Heinleins name accompanies his imagination into space; an asteroid and a crater on Mars are named after him.
Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
ROBERT HEINLEIN. ROCKET SHIP GALILEO (FLAT SIGNED). CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 1947.
Price: US$7895.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Edition, First impression, Signed: A Fine condition book with a near fine dust jacket. Boldly SIGNED by Robert Heinlein in vibrant black ink on the title page ?Robert Heinlein? ROCKET SHIP GALILEO was Heinlein?s first published novel, and a hallmark science fiction book described as follows: ROCKET SHIP GALILEO is ?the first US juvenile sf novel to reflect the new levels of characterization, style and scientific plausibility now expected in the field . it was the first in a series that represents the most important contribution any single writer has made to children?s sf .? ? Clute and Nicholls (eds.), The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1993), pp. 554-57. ?A pioneering novel that began American mainstream science fiction for children and combined young protagonists, gadgetry, current science, and adventure in such a way that even today the book retains interest.? ? Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 5-62. The book is in fine condition with clean black boards still maintaining their original sheen, and green titles to spine with a green rocket ship to front board. The book has sharp corners and no edgewear. The binding is very tight, and square. The end papers are clean with no owner names, no inscriptions and no book plates. The internal pages are clean, and flat with No marks, No bent pages, No foxing and no stains. Beautiful clean book internally appearing as unread. Boldly SIGNED by Robert Heinlein in vibrant black ink on the title page ?Robert Heinlein? Please see detailed images. The original unrestored dust jacket is in near fine condition with but a few very tiny nicks, and some sunning to the spine. The dust jacket has strong bright vibrant colors and is not price clipped showing the price of $2.00 on the inside flap. Please see multiple images. An extremely scarce title to find signed, and more scarce in this condition. Presents well on the shelf! Per L.W. Curry: The importance of this book cannot be overstated. It is the first published novel by a major, perhaps the most important, science fiction writer of postwar America. Heinlein began publishing SF in 1939 during the golden age of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. After World War II, he expanded the market for SF genre material, publishing his fiction in upscale magazines of the period (THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, BOY S LIFE, and others). In 1947 he introduced a generation of postwar young readers to this literary genre with the first of a series of juvenile novels which were published as hardcover books by the renowned mainstream publisher Charles Scribner s Sons, and later by G. P. Putnam. Their circulation was wide and they could be found in the children s section of most public libraries of the day. This title is the first U.S. juvenile SF novel to reflect the new levels of characterization, style and scientific plausibility now expected in the field it was the first in a series that represents the most important contribution any single writer has made to children s SF Clute and Nicholls (eds). The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1994), pp. 554-7. "A pioneering novel that began American mainstream science fiction for children and combined young protagonists, gadgetry, current science, and adventure in such a way that even today the book retains interest." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-515. ADDITIONAL IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. Please see our ABE store for additional landmark SciFi titles.
Seller: Meier And Sons Rare Books, New Canaan, CT, U.S.A.
Heinlein, Robert A.. Rocket Ship Galileo. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1947.
Price: US$9500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, first printing of the author's first published novel. Signed by Robert A. Heinlein on the title page. Bound in publisher's original black cloth stamped in green. Near Fine with light wear to spine ends, tiny spot to top of textblock edge and pages tanned. In a later state dust jacket which has been price clipped and over-stamped with a new price of $2.50, with toning and light wear, with a small repaired tear to the bottom of the rear flap fold.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Heinlein, Robert A.. ROCKET SHIP GALILEO .. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1947.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, cloth. First edition. Early signed inscription by Heinlein on front free endpaper: "For Dirce Archer / Sincerely / Robert A. Heinlein." Additionally signed in full by Heinlein on the title page. The author's first book, preceded by a pamphlet printing a convention speech. The importance of this book cannot be overstated. It is the first published novel by a major, perhaps the most important, science fiction writer of postwar America. Heinlein began publishing SF in 1939 during the golden age of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. After World War II, he expanded the market for SF genre material, publishing his fiction in upscale magazines of the period (THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, BOY'S LIFE, and others). In 1947 he introduced a generation of postwar young readers to this literary genre with the first of a series of juvenile novels which were published as hardcover books by the renowned mainstream publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, and later by G. P. Putnam. Their circulation was wide and they could be found in the children's section of most public libraries of the day. This title is ". the first U.S. juvenile SF novel to reflect the new levels of characterization, style and scientific plausibility now expected in the field . it was the first in a series that represents the most important contribution any single writer has made to children's SF ." - Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1994), pp. 554-7. "A pioneering novel that began American mainstream science fiction for children and combined young protagonists, gadgetry, current science, and adventure in such a way that even today the book retains interest." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-515. George Pal's 1950 film Destination Moon is loosely based on this novel. Heinlein co-authored the screenplay and served as a technical advisor to the production, along with German rocket expert Hermann Oberth. Destination Moon, the first of Pal's many SF films, "has great historical importance: its commercial success initiated the SF film boom of the 1950s, after a decade that had contained almost no SF cinema at all. It has interest in hindsight, too, in the partial accuracy with which it anticipated the actual Moon landing of 1969. To this day, Destination Moon stands as a film obvious made by people who knew about science ." - Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1993), p. 324. A fine copy in bright, fine second state dust jacket ("$2.00 printed price clipped and publisher's increased "$2.50" price rubber-stamped on front flap) with a just a touch of rubbing to lower spine end. A stunning copy. (#136272)
Seller: Currey, L.W. Inc. ABAA/ILAB, Elizabethtown, NY, U.S.A.
Heinlein, Robert A.. Rocket Ship Galileo [Dedication Copy]. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1947.
Price: US$32000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, first printing. The dedication copy of the author's first published novel, signed and inscribed by Robert A. Heinlein in the year of publication "with best wishes to my nephew Lawrence Lewis 'Buddy' Heinlein [signed] Robert Heinlein Nov. 1947" with an arrow pointing to Buddy's printed name on the dedication page. Additionally signed by Lawrence Lewis Heinlein as "L. L. Heinlein" on the front free endpaper. Lawrence was the son of Robert's brother. Bound in publisher's original black cloth stamped in green. Very Good with light wear and light soiling to cloth, spine ends and corners lightly worn, bumping to corners throughout, toning to endsheets with a small check mark to the top of the front free endpaper, pages tanned and with sporadic imperfections mostly affecting the margins at the fore edge. In a Near Fine supplied first state dust jacket priced at $2.00 with light edge wear and two tape reinforcements made to the verso. An immensely important work of science fiction and milestone in the genre. It was the first in the Heinlein juveniles, a long and successful series of science fiction novels published by Scribner's, and introduced a new generation of post-war young readers to the genre of science fiction Anatomy of Wonder calls this "A pioneering novel that began American mainstream science fiction for children and combined young protagonists, gadgetry, current science, and adventure in such a way that even today the book retains interest." It was "the first U.S. juvenile SF novel to reflect the new levels of characterization, style and scientific plausibility now expected in the field. It was the first in a series that represents the most important contribution any single writer has made to children's SF." - Clute and Nicholls, The Science Fiction Encyclopedia.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.