The Secret People had originally appeared in 1935 and the reprint was incredibly successful. Two collections of early short stories followed (I have a feeling that Walter Gillings was involved, although my memory may be playing tricks); a third followed six years later along with a reprint of another early novel, Stowaway to Mars, published as Planet Plane in 1936 but originally serialised as "Stowaway to Mars" in Passing Show; the series had also been printed in the boy's paper Modern Wonder with some editorial tampering to replace the female stowaway, Joan, with a boy, which meant a lot of further editing to remove the fact that Joan later falls pregnant in the original serial and dies in childbirth.
Unrelated to this series, Angus Wells compiled The Best of John Wyndham for Sphere in 1973, later split into two volumes in 1975 and 1977.
The Secret People
Coronet 0-340-15834-4, 1972. Cover by Chris Foss
Coronet, 1977. Cover by Colin Hay (not pictured)
New English Library 0-450-42014-0 [11th imp], 1987.
Coronet 0-340-15834-4, 1972. Cover by Chris Foss
Coronet, 1977. Cover by Colin Hay (not pictured)
New English Library 0-450-42014-0 [11th imp], 1987.
Wanderers of Time
Coronet 0-340-17306-8, 1973. Cover by Chris Foss
Coronet, 1977. Cover by Colin Hay
New English Library 0-450-42015-9, 1987 (not pictured)
Coronet 0-340-17306-8, 1973. Cover by Chris Foss
Coronet, 1977. Cover by Colin Hay
New English Library 0-450-42015-9, 1987 (not pictured)
Sleepers of Mars
Coronet 0-340-17326-2, 1973. Cover by Colin Hay?
New English Library 0-450-42023-X, 1987. (not pictured)
Coronet 0-340-17326-2, 1973. Cover by Colin Hay?
New English Library 0-450-42023-X, 1987. (not pictured)
Stowaway to Mars
Coronet 0-340-15835-2, 1972. Cover by Colin Hay
New English Library 0-450-42024-8, 1987. (not pictured)
Coronet 0-340-15835-2, 1972. Cover by Colin Hay
New English Library 0-450-42024-8, 1987. (not pictured)
(* With thanks to Richard Sheaf who supplied a number of the above scans.)
Love the Wyndham gallery. makes me want to read them all over again. My favs are those old stories like "Exies of Asperus" which its cool bat people or "Invisible Monster" with its unseen mouths eating away at people. Much creepier than the Invisible Man.
ReplyDeleteGW
Missing is 'Sleepers of Mars' Coronet 1973?
ReplyDeleteNot missing. It's the fifth picture down.
ReplyDelete