75 years ago this month, in August 1951, the first “novel” in the Foundation trilogy was published: ‘Foundation’.
Isaac Asimov had previously worked with a publisher called Martin Greenberg of Gnome Press. Greenberg founded Gnome Press in 1948, along with another science fiction fan, David Kyle. Together, they focussed on publishing science fiction and fantasy books, at a time when the market for these books was just growing. The Golden Age under the aegis of John Campbell at the ‘Astounding Stories’ magazine had created a demand for science fiction, and developed a whole stable of science-fiction writers. Gnome Press stepped up and tried to publish a lot of these writers in book form; both Greenberg and Kyle were science fiction fans.
Greenberg had previously passed over Asimov’s ‘Pebble in the Sky’ (his first novel), but had suggested publishing a collection of Asimov’s robot short stories. Asimov agreed, and ‘I, Robot’ had been published in 1950.
Then, in February 1951, Greenberg suggested publishing Asimov’s Foundation short stories in book form. Up to that point, Asimov had written eight of these stories, from 1942 to 1950, and they were ripe for publishing as books. Two other publishers – Doubleday, and a Boston firm called Little, Brown – had already turned them down for publishing (and didn’t Doublebay regret that decision in years to come!), so Asimov was happy when Greenberg offered to publish them.
It was decided that the eight stories would be collected into three volumes. The four later stories were longer, so only two stories would be included in each book. That left the earlier four stories for the first book, which turned out to be a bit shorter than the other two books would be. So, Greenberg suggested that Asimov write an introductory story, both to bring the word count up, and to ease readers into the series, which he felt started too abruptly.
Therefore, in March 1951, Asimov wrote an introductory story which he called ‘The Psychohistorians’. Then they renamed the other four stories to suit the new book format:
‘Foundation’ became ‘The Encyclopedists’
‘Bridle and Saddle’ became ‘The Mayors’
‘The Big and the Little’ became ‘The Merchant Princes’
‘The Wedge’ became ‘The Traders’
And, so, a new book came to be, titled simply ‘Foundation’. And, it was now called a novel, rather than a collection. (The technical term is “fix-up novel”, where a group of stories is fixed up to become a pseudo-novel.)
This new novel was published in August 1951, with a galactic swirl and a convoy of spaceships on the cover. Asimov himself received his advance copies in early September.
Of course, in Asimov’s life, this new book had to share the spotlight with another event: the birth of his first child on 20th August, young David.
This was Asimov’s fourth published book, after ‘Pebble in the Sky’, ‘I, Robot’, and ‘The Stars Like Dust —’.
The following two volumes, ‘Foundation and Empire’ and ‘Second Foundation’, were publishing in successive years: 1952 and 1953.
Unfortunately, Martin Greenberg and Gnome Press were lax in paying royalties to Asimov and the other authors they had published. This caused some ill feeling between Isaac and Marty when Asimov said he wasn’t going to give Gnome Press any more books, after the Foundation trilogy had been published: those four books (including ‘I, Robot’) were all that Gnome would ever get from him. Isaac and Marty remained friends, but the business relationship was over – and it took Asimov literally years to get any of the payments he was due.
A decade later, Asimov mentioned this to Doubleday, who promptly bought the rights from Gnome Press. Because… of course they did! Who wouldn’t? By that time, they were one of the best-selling and well-known series around. In fact, the collected trilogy would go on to win a one-off Hugo Award for Best Series in 1966.
Asimov remained grateful to Greenberg, despite the difficulties. In Isaac’s words (from ‘I, Asimov’):
After all, whether Martin paid me or not, he produced those four books when Doubleday would not. They existed and remained alive until it was time for Doubleday to take the Gnome Press caterpillar and turn it into a butterfly.
Without Martin Greenberg of Gnome Press, there would be no Foundation trilogy. The stories might have remained just one of those quirky old series we hear about from the Golden Age, but which couldn’t be read because the magazines they were printed in, in the 1940s, simply weren’t available to buy – so they would have faded from memory. It was only due to Greenberg that the Foundation series remained readable in book form over the following 75 years, thus becoming an icon of science-fiction.
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