The Science Fiction Book Club hardcover of I Am Legend was the first copy of the book I ever owned. The copy was the lone book in a sparse booth at a local Flea Market, and it cost me a whopping twenty-five cents. It was the start of my I Am Legend collection, and not long after finding it, I acquired a 1964 Bantam paperback at a Berkeley Bart station Flea Market — also for twenty-five cents! The collection has since grown to over 200 different editions from around the world.
When I was growing up, the Santa Clara Public Library had two copies of I Am Legend — the 1970 Walker hardcover (we'll get to that one soon enough), and this edition from 10 years later. To my young eyes, this version had the more appealing cover art (painted as part of a series of science-fiction classics for the SFBC by artist Tony Gleeson). As was common practice, book club editions don't clearly include printing information, leading a lot of folks to incorrectly assume that this edition was published decades earlier, since it only lists the original copyright date of 1954. As I came to possess multiple copies of this edition through the years, I observed that there were three distinct bindings used. As a public service, I posted my field guide to the SFBC hardcovers describing each on my I Am Legend Archive blog in 2012.
As I now was able to determine which was the first SFBC hardcover edition, I took advantage of the opportunity to have artist Tony Gleeson sign and remarque my copy with an original illustration of protagonist Robert Neville, making it a one-of-a-kind piece in the collection.
Come back next Monday for the next item from my I Am Legend collection!
