Galaxy Science Fiction / Galaxy Magazine 1950-1961
“If ever there was a real Golden Age of science fiction it was 1950-54, when Galaxy, Astounding, [Fantasy & Science Fiction], If, … and a dozen or more magazines published some of the best work ever seen ….”
— Mike Ashley, “Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970” (2005)
“[A]fter Galaxy it was impossible to go on being naïve.”
— Frederik Pohl, introduction to Frederik Pohl, Martin H. Greenberg & Joseph D. Olander, “Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction” (1980)
OVER 100 ISSUES OF THE INNOVATIVE SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION (LATER GALAXY MAGAZINE) — A COMPLETE SET FROM 1950-1961 COVERING THE PERIOD DURING WHICH IT WAS EDITED BY H.L. GOLD, AND INCLUDING NUMEROUS CLASSIC WORKS OF SCIENCE FICTION BY ASIMOV, HEINLEIN, BRADBURY, AND OTHERS.
H.L. Gold (1914-1996) was an important science fiction author and editor. In 1934, writing under the pen-name Clyde Crane Campbell, he published his first story, “Inflexure,” in Astounding Stories, and went on to publish numerous others. “All of [Gold’s] best fantasies are in a similar format: an unpretentious person either acquires or discovers he has some special talent. The stories always focus on the ‘little man.’” (John Clute and John Grant, eds., “The Encyclopedia of Fantasy” (1999).) In 1939, Gold began his career as an editor, working for the pulp magazines Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories; and he later went to work for the comics, contributing stories to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, among others. However, he is best known today for the career he began in 1950, as the editor of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine (later just Galaxy Magazine), a post he held until 1961.
Under Gold’s leadership, Galaxy published many of the classic science fiction novels of the 1950s, including Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (originally “The Fireman”), Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination”, Isaac Asimov’s “The Caves of Steel” and “The Stars Like Dust”, and Robert Heinlein’s “The Puppet Masters”, to name only a few. Aside from science fiction, the magazine also included a book review column, and a science-fact column written by Willy Ley, a popular science writer of the era best known for his works on rocketry.
“Galaxy first appeared in early September 1950, bearing an October cover date. It was in digest format, though its 160 pages were on better quality book-paper stock rather than the pulp used by Other Worlds and Imagination, so it looked slimmer. The cover itself was fairly bland. Depicting an asteroid scene from Clifford D. Simak’s serial ‘Time Quarry,’ there was no action, only stilted characters, and muted colours for the rocks. This was deliberate on the part of artist David Stone, who had gone for a non-sensational cover. The idea was to have a magazine that you were not embarrassed to hold but with a cover sufficient to identify it as science fiction.” (Ashley, op. cit.).
Gold aimed to move science fiction away from the technology- and adventure-oriented “space westerns” that had predominated in the field in the 1940s, and towards fiction with a greater focus on personal psychology and social issues. His manifesto, published on the back cover of the first issue, declared “You’ll Never See It in Galaxy,” and went on to present, side-by-side, an excerpt from a stereotypical western story and the same story transposed into space. That was the kind of writing, Gold said, that readers would never find in Galaxy. Instead, they would find “authentic, plausible, thoughtful” fiction “written by authors who do not automatically switch over from crime waves to earth invasions.” (This dig was presumably directed at the fact that many of the early pulp writers did, in fact, engage in genre switching — John D. MacDonald dabbled briefly in sci-fi; Lawrence Block and Robert Silverberg originally wrote erotica; and Elmore Leonard’s early works were westerns.)
“… Gold worked with his [writers] to ensure that the characters and social settings were realistic. What starts to come through, even from the first issue, and increasingly over the next couple of years, is that Galaxy’s science fiction was people-orientated rather than ideas-orientated. … Gold was not a scientist, but was someone highly aware of society. Because of the problems he had faced … in the Pacific [during World War II], Gold had become agoraphobic, and increasingly found himself house-bound. He became highly conscious of his isolation and his reliance upon people and society, and this channeled his view of future society.” (Ashley).
On September 6, 1953, at the World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia, the first Hugo awards — the Oscars of the science-fiction world — were presented. Galaxy writers and artists won several of the awards, and the magazine itself tied with Astounding Stories for the best magazine.
“The influence of Galaxy upon the field is incalculable. The most obvious factor was that Galaxy proved how successful a science-fiction magazine could be. By its second year sales were well in excess of 100,000, outselling Astounding. Secondly, it demonstrated that a magazine could consistently publish mature, adult science fiction without recourse to monsters and ray-guns.” (Ashley)
Not the least of the delights offered by this set are the cover illustrations. Galaxy’s covers had a characteristic “inverted-L” layout introduced by Gold, in which white borders on the top and left displayed title, issue, and date information along, in some later issues, with highlights of the contents. The cover illustration occupied the remainder of the cover. This format, later copied by Gold’s competitors, “soon became a statement about quality and style.” (Ashley).
The illustrations run a wide gamut, some offering the expected rocket ships (February 1951) and vistas of stars and planets (e.g., November 1951), while others feature such oddities as a primordial version of the cantina scene from Star Wars (December 1951). (The latter illustration, by the way, also features Santa Claus drinking with an alien. Santa soon became a regular feature of the cover art of Galaxy’s December or January issues. For example, the cover of the December 1953 issue shows him opening the airlock of his spaceship to a mixed group of alien and human carolers.) The August 1952 cover shows alien tourists snapping photos in New York City, while several unimpressed New Yorkers walk by. June 1952 shows a Utopian, Jetson-like city; and June 1957 depicts an artist working on the surface of Saturn, his easel set up and his spaceship nearby, as he paints the planet’s rings. The illustrations range widely in genre, running from the humorous, to the expressionistic (detached heads floating in space alongside a cube and a hi-tech set of brass knuckles; January 1952), to the surrealistic (a Dali-esque depiction of a futuristic jazz band; February 1955).
And some of the covers, although meant to invoke the future, speak to us straight from the nineteen-fifties. The January 1955 cover shows a 25th century woman getting ready for a night out, with machines and androids attending to her hair, nails, make-up, etc., as her husband’s scowling face appears on the televisor, angrily checking his watch. A spacewoman on the November 1950 color can be seen through her spacesuit helmet to be lipsticked, immaculately coiffed, and apparently mascara’ed.
The back covers are also of some interest, some featuring book advertisements that, in the manner of 1950s paperback publishers, attempted to lure readers to the classics by making them appear to be soft-core porn.
This set:
Offered here is a complete run of all of the issues published under the editorship of H.L. Gold. That period began with the first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction in October 1950, and continued through 1961, when Frederik Pohl took over the editorship. (December 1961 is the first issue to actually list Pohl as the editor, although he had apparently taken over earlier in the year.) With the September 1958 issue Gold changed the title of the magazine from Galaxy Science Fiction to Galaxy Magazine, on the theory that the phrase “science fiction” in the title was scaring away some readers. The magazine was published monthly from October 1950 (vol 1, No. 1) through December 1958 (Volume 17, No. 2), skipping, for some reason, publication in December 1955. From 1959 through the end of the period covered by this set, it published only six issues per year, in alternate months starting with February 1959. (This change in publication schedule was made by the publisher in order to cut costs and reduce Gold’s workload.)
In all, a total of 116 issues are offered here, representing a complete run of Galaxy from October 1950 through October 1961.
A true "collector's set": Each issue is individually protected in archival mylar so the issues can be read and handled without risk of damage. The set itself is impressively housed in three beautiful custom boxes with partitions designed by noted book artist Sjoerd Hofstra. Assembled by a fastidious collector, the set features issues generally in outstanding condition with only minor scattered, general wear.
New York: World Editions / Galaxy Publications, 1950-1961. 12mo, original illustrated wrappers; 116 issues housed in three large custom cloth boxes with leather spine labels.
Check Availability:
P: 212.326.8907
E: info@manhattanrarebooks.com