Book Description

This is a complete page-by-page replica of the legendary 1927 Amazing Stories Annual, produced by Hugo Gernsback. Few copies the 1927 Annual survive today-in fact, one of the original issues recently sold on eBay for over $350. It featured one of Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom novels, The Master-Mind of Mars, in its first appearance anywhere. It was especially written for Amazing Stories and features eleven illustrations from the grandfather of science fiction art, Frank R. Paul, who produced some of his finest illustrative work ever. The annual also featured two stories from the opposite end of th science fiction spectrum fans had been begging Gernsback to reprint: A. Merritt's best short novel, "The Face in the Abyss," and his celebrated short, "The People of the Pit," again with Paul's inimitable illustrations. Merritt was considered the finest U.S. science fiction writer of the time (a position confirmed in 1999 when he was inducted posthumously into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame). The annual also featured Austin Hall's celebrated "The Man Who Saved the Earth," A. Hyatt Verrill's "The Man who Could Vanish," a straight-faced jape from the distinguished ethnologist; and "Under the Knife," an incomparable story by the incomparable H.G. Wells. This replica reprint is an essential addition to any fan's library.