Gnome Press
Gnome Press. Inc., one of the early small specialty publishers run by SF fans, was founded in 1948 by Martin Greenberg and David A. Kyle. Greenberg was the idea man who found manuscripts, while Kyle handled editorial and production as well as doing art design (and sometimes the art itself.)
The very first book, The Carnelian Cube, was printed by Kyle's family printing business, but later books were done by Colonial Press in Massachusetts, a specialist book printer that Kyle located.
They intended to publish space opera and whimsical fantasy. Gnome Press was probably the most important of the small press publishers, and published many of the important magazine SF/fantasy authors of the 1940s-1950s. It bought out the stock of Fantasy Press in 1958, and survived as a publisher into the early 1960s. The books published during the first five years of its existence were as follows:
1948 -- The Carnelian Cube by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt; The Porcelain Magician by Frank Owen. 1949 -- Pattern for Conquest by George O. Smith; Sixth Column by Robert Heinlein; The Thirty-First of February by Nelson S. Bond. 1950 -- The Castle of Iron by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt; Typewriter in the Sky and Fear by L. Ron Hubbard; I, Robot by Isaac Asimov; Minions of the Moon by William Gray Beyer; Conan the Conqueror by Robert E. Howard; Cosmic Engineers by Clifford D. Simak; Men Against the Stars edited by Martin Greenberg. 1951 -- Renaissance by Raymond F. Jones; Seetee Ship by Will Stewart (Jack Williamson); Foundation by Isaac Asimov; The Fairy Chessmen & Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore); Travelers of Space edited by Martin Greenberg; Journey to Infinity edited by Martin Greenberg. 1952 -- Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov; The Starmen by Leigh Brackett; Judgment Night by C. L. Moore; Robots Have No Tails by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore); The Sword of Conan by Robert E. Howard; City by Clifford D. Simak; The Mixed Men by A. E. van Vogt; Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke; Five Science Fiction Novels edited by Martin Greenberg.
Other authors/editors whose books Gnome published during the 1950s included Hal Clement (Harry Clement Stubbs), Wilmar H. Shiras, Nat Schachner, Murray Leinster (Will F. Jenkins), Frederik Pohl, F. L. Wallace, Andrew North (Alice Mary Norton/Andre Norton), James E. Gunn, Judith Merril, James Blish, Robert Randall (Robert Silverberg & Randall Garrett), Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson, Mark Clifton & Frank Riley, Fritz Leiber, and Tom Godwin.
Gnome Press was associated with Greenberg: Publisher. Martin Greenberg of Gnome Press is not to be confused with Martin H. Greenberg, political scientist and anthologist.
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