The Martian Chronicles

First published in 1950, this book is a sequence of linked stories about the human settlement of Mars across several decades of a fictional future. Expeditions meet Martians who appear in dreams or as survivors of a dying culture; later stories follow towns, a hot-dog stand, and families who have left an Earth sliding toward atomic war. Some pieces are brief sketches, others complete tales. The chronology is a future history rather than one protagonist's life. The book is a story cycle, not a technical account of planetary science.

Bound in dark blue buckram blocked with a red and silver design by the artist. Dark blue slipcase. Bright red endpapers.