Debunking Science

First edition. Wrappers and affixed printed dustwrapper as issued. Sunning, split at the bottom of the front flap, very good. Signed by Bell. Eric Temple Bell was a mathematician and important scholar who wrote the bestselling history of mathematics "Men of Mathematics" and and also wrote science fiction under the name of John Taine. This copy with the bookplate of the important rocket scientist and influential science-fiction fan John Drury Clark. In addition to writing an important book on rocket propulsion, as well as a couple of stories in "Astounding Stories", Clark was also instrumental in revitalizing and promoting the career of Robert E. Howard. He was college roommates with L. Sprague de Camp, who he encouraged to write science fiction stories, introduced de Camp to his sometime co-writer Fletcher Pratt, and eventually married Pratt's widow Inga. His previous marriage prompted Pratt to form a club of science fiction writers and scientists called The Trap Door Spiders, so that they wouldn't have to socialize with Clark's first wife. Isaac Asimov later fictionalized the club as a group of mystery solvers, The Black Widowers.…