£300
FIRST BRITISH EDITION, 8vo, pp. 253, [1]. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, pictorial dustjacket printed in black and yellow. A touch of spotting to edges. Spine lightly faded, dustjacket creased and dustsoiled, rubbed and slightly worn to extremities, internally spotted.
The first British edition of Arthur C. Clarke's fifth novel, which became his most successful at the time, selling out of its first US print run in 1953 with Ballantine. This is the binding of blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt - it is also found in a plainer yellow boards lettered in black, with no precedence recorded - which is slightly more common on the market but seems likelier to be the earlier issue.
