My Library of America volumes of classic 1950’s science fiction have arrived:
The first volume features a perfectly appropriate cover by Richard Powers. I can’t trace the date of this cover, but it seems more like Powers late 50’s, early 60’s style:
The second has an equally stunning cover by Ralph Brillhart, from his 1965 cover for Pohl’s Plague of Pythons (ISFDB credits this cover to Powers, but the Library of America lists Brillhart as the artist):
The slipcase also features art by Richard Powers:
This is from his 1953 cover for Clarke’s Childhood’s End:
This is a great core collection of novels from 1953-1958:
The Space Merchants
More Than Human
The Long Tomorrow
The Shrinking Man
Double Star
The Stars My Destination
A Case of Conscience
Who?
The Big Time
Overall, the Library of America got it right – a great collection, enhanced substantially with period covers, and an online supplement with more of everything.






Seriously tempted to pick those up, even though I already have half of what’s collected.
I’ve already got four of those novels in other forms, but this edition is so well done that I couldn’t resist. These novels get the full Library of America treatment – author bios, textual history, and notes. Gary Wolfe has done a great job with those, making them interesting for fans and not just sci-fi scholars.
That is indeed a Brillhart cover, though I too at first thought it was Powers. Some details about the painting can be found here: http://astoundingartifacts.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html
As for the Powers cover on the 1953-56 volume, it originally appeared on a fairly obscure Leo Margulies collection called 3 From Out There (Crest, 1959).
And thanks for the nice comments!
Thanks for the link (I need to follow that blog), and the cover credit. Congrats on the release of these very nice volumes, and the companion website. As a fan, I’m glad to have these on my shelf next to my collection of beat-up old paperbacks, and I’m sure these volumes will introduce many new readers to the pleasures of 50′s SF.