- Year
- 1970
- By
- Goddard, Esther C. (editor); Pendray, G. Edward (associate editor)
- Published
- New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Edition
- English. First edition, 3 vols., HC in slipcase, original glassine spine wrappers (torn on all three volumes).
- Ciancone
- N/A.
- Shelf
- L9
- Catalog
- Catalog A · Early Pioneers
The complete surviving record of Goddard’s working life, assembled at the initiative of his widow Esther with a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation — the same foundation that funded his rocket experiments from 1930 onward. The project ran from 1958 to publication in 1970: notebooks, correspondence, patent files, and the annual reports Goddard submitted to the Smithsonian Institution and the Guggenheims, few of which had previously seen print.
Volume One covers 1898–1924, Volume Two 1925–1937 (the Roswell years), and Volume Three 1938–1945; xl + 1708 pages, illustrated throughout with photographs and diagrams from Goddard’s own files. Issued at $150 for the set.
The slipcase carries a gold medallion on the front reproducing Goddard’s posthumous Congressional Gold Medal of 1959, and on the back a second medallion with his own words — “The dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow” — and “First Rocket March 16, 1926,” the date of his first liquid-fuel launch at Auburn, Massachusetts. A number, “23625,” is gilt-stamped at the base of the slipcase; likely a bindery or stock-control mark rather than a limited-edition number.