OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

First UK edition, first printing. Original black cloth lettered in white to the spine, in the dustwrapper designed by Richard Barton. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and lettering sharp, the contents clean throughout. There is a touch of softening to spine tips. Complete with the unusually bright, clean and sharp dustwrapper, showing just a touch of soiling and a short closed tear to the rear panel. Not price-clipped (12s 6d to the front flap). A lovely copy.

The author's first book, a collection of eight stories with an introduction. A US edition under the same title was published by Ballantine Books the year before, however the contents differ significantly. The volume was well received at the time and Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove, in their history of science fiction, wrote of Tenn that "of all the fifties satirists working in the short story field—at a time when the SF short story was surely at its peak—none had a sharper wit than William Tenn", going on to describe 'Of All Possible Worlds' as "his best collection". The stories are prefaced by the author's extended essay 'On the Fiction in Science Fiction'. "Every good story", he writes "is a kind of sealed universe in which, as the action unfolds, the reader is privy to the laws peculiar to it".