Interplanetary Travels.

The tenth edition of Perelman’s Interplanetary Travels, issued only three years after the seventh and, as Perelman says in his preface, nearly three times the size of the first edition (1915). He explains that new developments could not simply be added to the old text; chapters were rewritten, and he made changes even though the ninth edition was only a year old. The book keeps its popular form, with material for better-prepared readers moved to the appendices.

It opens with the author’s preface and Tsiolkovsky’s preface to the sixth edition, then runs twenty-one chapters (to p. 191): the dream of space travel; universal gravitation; whether one can shelter from or weaken gravity; defying gravity on waves of light; the cannon to the Moon (theory and practice); the rocket to the stars; the construction and history of the gunpowder rocket; Kibalchich’s flying machine; the energy source and mechanics of the rocket; stellar navigation; Tsiolkovsky’s projects; an artificial Moon and extraterrestrial station; experiments with new rockets; two unrealizable projects; life aboard a spaceship; and the dangers of starflight. Thirteen appendices (pp. 192–269) include rocket dynamics, a rocket across the ocean, a rocket to the Moon, a new appendix on the stratosphere, interplanetary signaling, a bibliography of rocket flight and starflight, and a chronology of events that runs to 1935. Illustrated; cover and title page by G. B. Ibakh.

A list of Perelman’s other books at the back includes To The Stars By Rocket and Rocket To The Moon, both in this collection. Print run 50,000, approved for printing 11 November 1935. The seventh edition (1932) and the 1934 Verne edition edited by Perelman are also in the collection.