Story & Significance
Gnome Press issued The Forgotten Planet in four recorded bindings, and figuring out which one you're holding is most of the fun and most of the difficulty of collecting this title. Currey lists a cream cloth binding lettered in yellow green as the earliest recorded state (the copy deposited with the Library of Congress), followed by cream boards with a yellow green marbled pattern lettered in green, then two bindings he describes as coming later: tan boards lettered in green, and gray cloth lettered in red. We've written more on this binding sequence, and on how to work through it on a copy in hand, in a separate post on the site.
This copy is binding state C, tan boards lettered in green, one of the two states Currey identifies as coming later in the print run rather than the earliest cream cloth state. Full identification notes below.
Physical Description
This is a first edition, Gnome Press, 1954, binding state C per Currey: tan boards lettered in green. The binding is tight, the text block crisp and clean throughout, with only minor soiling to the front free endpaper as a defect, book condition Fine. Note that the boards read closer to gray than tan under some lighting, which is worth knowing if you're identifying this state by eye rather than side by side with a reference copy.
The dust jacket, condition Near Fine minus, is unclipped with the $2.50 price present on the front flap. The spine shows rubbing; otherwise the jacket is in exceptional condition with no chips, tears, or soiling of note. This is the map-design jacket, the standard issue for the title; Currey also records a scarce variant jacket depicting a man confronted by a giant scarab beetle, originally prepared for Gnome's short-lived "Gnome Juniors" line and abandoned as commercially unattractive, though surviving examples occasionally turn up. This copy is the standard map jacket, not the beetle variant.
Collector's Note
An unclipped, price-intact jacket on a Gnome Press title from this period is genuinely hard to find in this kind of condition, and that alone puts this copy ahead of most that come up for sale. Currey marks the cream cloth binding as the earliest recorded state, with the tan boards of binding C and the gray cloth of binding D coming later in the print run, so this copy sits later in the production sequence than the Library of Congress deposit copy, not earlier.
For a buyer building a run of Gnome Press firsts, a Fine book in a jacket this clean is worth having on its own terms. For a buyer specifically chasing the earliest cream cloth state, this copy is not that, but is an exceptionally clean copy for Golden Age collectors.
Story & Significance
Gnome Press issued The Forgotten Planet in four recorded bindings, and figuring out which one you're holding is most of the fun and most of the difficulty of collecting this title. Currey lists a cream cloth binding lettered in yellow green as the earliest recorded state (the copy deposited with the Library of Congress), followed by cream boards with a yellow green marbled pattern lettered in green, then two bindings he describes as coming later: tan boards lettered in green, and gray cloth lettered in red. We've written more on this binding sequence, and on how to work through it on a copy in hand, in a separate post on the site.
This copy is binding state C, tan boards lettered in green, one of the two states Currey identifies as coming later in the print run rather than the earliest cream cloth state. Full identification notes below.
Physical Description
This is a first edition, Gnome Press, 1954, binding state C per Currey: tan boards lettered in green. The binding is tight, the text block crisp and clean throughout, with only minor soiling to the front free endpaper as a defect, book condition Fine. Note that the boards read closer to gray than tan under some lighting, which is worth knowing if you're identifying this state by eye rather than side by side with a reference copy.
The dust jacket, condition Near Fine minus, is unclipped with the $2.50 price present on the front flap. The spine shows rubbing; otherwise the jacket is in exceptional condition with no chips, tears, or soiling of note. This is the map-design jacket, the standard issue for the title; Currey also records a scarce variant jacket depicting a man confronted by a giant scarab beetle, originally prepared for Gnome's short-lived "Gnome Juniors" line and abandoned as commercially unattractive, though surviving examples occasionally turn up. This copy is the standard map jacket, not the beetle variant.
Collector's Note
An unclipped, price-intact jacket on a Gnome Press title from this period is genuinely hard to find in this kind of condition, and that alone puts this copy ahead of most that come up for sale. Currey marks the cream cloth binding as the earliest recorded state, with the tan boards of binding C and the gray cloth of binding D coming later in the print run, so this copy sits later in the production sequence than the Library of Congress deposit copy, not earlier.
For a buyer building a run of Gnome Press firsts, a Fine book in a jacket this clean is worth having on its own terms. For a buyer specifically chasing the earliest cream cloth state, this copy is not that, but is an exceptionally clean copy for Golden Age collectors.
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