APRIL IN PARIS; NEW WORLDS; PLANE JANE [in] FANTASTIC STORIES OF IMAGINATION

First edition of Ursula Le Guin's first professionally published short story. Signed by the author. Publisher's original paper covers featuring an illustration by Lloyd Birmingham. Further illustrations throughout the text by Jack Gaughn, leo Summers, and others. An excellent better than very good copy, the binding square and firm with a little rubbing and small creases to the spine tips and corners, the covers bright and fresh. The contents, toned to the pulp paper stock, are otherwise clean throughout and without previous owner's marks.

Inscribed by Ursula Le Guin in black ink on the title page of her story (on page 54) "For Lyn Shively / Ursula K. Le Guin / 5.x.85". Scarce thus. 'April In Paris' is the first paid for appearance in print (after a long string of rejections), from a writer who would later go on to win all of the major science fiction and fantasy awards, become one of only five women to be named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by her peers in SFWA (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), and be awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.