Endings and beginnings, 1953-1957

The 1950s saw Clarke's fiction gain increasing recognition — on an international scale — with several significant novels published in the decade. Here you can see the first edition of his novel Childhood's End, published in the US by Ballantine Books in 1953.

Back cover to the same edition. Note the text introducing Clarke to an American audience. 

An Italian edition of Childhood's End published in 2000. This represents one of the many translated editions of Clarke's works in the Arthur C. Clarke Library at the University of Liverpool. 

First edition of The City and the Stars (1956). The novel ostensibly enhanced Clarke's reputation as an author of "provocative and dramatic novel[s] of ideas", as the inner dust jacket text claims. 

The City and the Stars was reissued as a Gollancz SF 'yellow jacket' twelve years after its initial publication — a fact emphasised in the cover to the edition. 

Front cover to the first edition of Earthlight (1955): a novel that speculates on the politics of a future lunar colony.

Published in novel form in 1957, The Deep Range chronicles the capture of a titanic sea creature and life on an aquatic colony. A keen scuba diver and consistent naturalist, Clarke apologies for "making certain assumptions about the maximum size of various marine animals which may be challenged by some biologists" in the author's note to the novel.  

Italian edition of The Deep Range from March 1962.