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Acknowledgments
The date was August 1, 1941 World War II had been raging for two years France had fallen, the Battle of Britain had been fought, and the Soviet Union had just been invaded by Nazi Ger of Pearl Harbor was four months in the future
But on that day, with Europe in fla over all the world, as chiefly on
I was 21 years old, a graduate student in che science fiction professionally for three years In that time, I had sold five stories to John Cahtfall," was about to appear in the Septeazine I had an appointment to see Mr Ca to write, and the catch was that I had no plot in mind, not the trace of one
I therefore tried a device I sometimes use I opened a book at rando hatever I first saw The book I had with me was a collection of the Gilbert and Sullivan plays I happened to open it to the picture of the Fairy Queen of lolanthe throwing herself at the feet of Private Willis I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the Roman Empire - of a Galactic Empire - aha!
Why shouldn't I write of the fall of the Galactic Empire and of the return of feudalism, written from the viewpoint of someone in the secure days of the Second Galactic Empire? After all, I had read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not once, but twice
I was bubbling over by the tiot to Ca for Campbell blazed up as I had never seen him do In the course of an hour we built up the notion of a vast series of connected stories that were to deal in intricate detail with the thousand-year period between the First and Second Galactic Empires This was to be illuminated by the science of psychohistory, which Campbell and I thrashed out between us
On August 11, 1941, therefore, I began the story of that interregnum and called it "Foundation" In it, I described how the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, established a pair of Foundations at opposite ends of the Universe under such circumstances as toabout the second Empire after one thousand years instead of the thirty thousand that would be required otherwise
The story was submitted on September 8 and, to make sure that Campbell really meant what he said about a series, I ended "Foundation" on a cliff-hanger Thus, it seemed to me, he would be forced to buy a second story
However, when I started the second story (on October 24), I found that I had outsmarted myself I quickly wrote myself into an inominious death had I not had a conversation with Fred Pohl on Novee, as it happened) I don't remember what Fred actually said, but, whatever it was, it pulled me out of the hole
"Foundation" appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding and the succeeding story, "Bridle and Saddle," in the June 1942 issue
After that there was only the routine trouble of writing the stories Through the rerindstone and ot additional Foundation stories
"The Big and the Little" was in the August 1944 Astounding, "The Wedge" in the October 1944 issue, and "Dead Hand" in the April 1945 issue (These stories ritten while I orking at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia)
On January 26, 1945, I began "The Mule,"the Foundation stories, and the longest yet, for it was 50,000 words It was printed as a two-part serial (the very first serial I was ever responsible for) in the November and December 1945 issues By the time the second part appeared I was in the army
After I got out of the army, I wrote "Now You See It-" which appeared in the January 1948 issue By this tirown tired of the Foundation stories so I tried to end the, the mystery of the location of the Second Foundation Cae the ending, and made me promise I would do one more Foundation story
Well, Campbell was the kind of editor who could not be denied, so I wrote oneto myself that it would be the last I called it "-And Now You Don't," and it appeared as a three-part serial in the November 1949, Dece
By then, I was on the biochemistry faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, my first book had just been published, and I was deterht years on the Foundation, written nine stories with a total of about 220,000 words My total earnings for the series cah The Foundation was over and done with, as far as I was concerned
In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just co a littlethe Foundation series reprinted in book form I offered the series to Doubleday (which had already published a science-fiction novel by me, and which had contracted for another) and to Little-Brown, but both rejected it In that year, though, a s to be active, and it was prepared to do the Foundation series as three books
The publisher of Gnoan too abruptly He persuaded me to write a small Foundation story, one that would serve as an introductory section to the first book (so that the first part of the Foundation series was the last written)
In 1951, the Gno the introduction and the first four stories of the series In 1952, Foundation and Empire appeared, with the fifth and sixth stories; and in 1953, Second Foundation appeared, with the seventh and eighth stories The three books together cay
The y pleased me, but Gno kno to get the books distributed properly, so that few copies were sold and fewer still paid me royalties (Nowadays, copies of first editions of those Gnoet no royalties from them)
Ace Books did put out paperback editions of Foundation and of Foundation and Eed the titles, and used cut versions Any money that was involved was paid to Gnome Press and I didn't see much of that In the first decade of the existence of The Foundation Trilogy itlike 1500 total
And yet there was son interest In early 1961, Timothy Seldes, as then my editor at Doubleday, told uese rights for the Foundation series and, since they weren't Doubleday books, he was passing thehed and said, "The heck with it, Tiet royalties on those books"
Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the books away from Gnome Press so that Doubleday could publish them instead He paid no attention to my loudly expressed fears that Doubleday "would lose its shirt on thereement was reached and the Foundation books became Doubleday property What's more, Avon Books, which had published a paperback version of Second Foundation, set about obtaining the rights to all three from Doubleday, and put out nice editions
Froan to earn increasing royalties They have sold well and steadily, both in hardcover and softcover, for two decades so far Increasingly, the letters I received froh praise They received ether
Doubleday also published an oy, for its Science Fiction Book Club That omnibus volume has been continuously featured by the Book Club for over twenty years
Matters reached a cli the World Science Fiction Convention for that year (to be held in Cleveland) decided to award a Hugo for the best all-time series, where the series, to qualify, had to consist of at least three connected novels It was the first tiory had been set up, nor has it been repeated since The Foundation series was noh for s" would win
It didn't The Foundation series won, and the Hugo I received for it has been sitting on room ever since
In a all this litany of success, both inside-effect Readers couldn't help but notice that the books of the Foundation series covered only three hundred-plus years of the thousand-year hiatus between Empires That ot innumerable letters from readers who asked me to finish it, from others who deeance if I didn't finish it Worse yet, various editors at Doubleday over the years have pointed out that it ht be wise to finish it
It was flattering, of course, but irritating as well Years had passed, then decades Back in the 1940s, I had been in a Foundation-writingin the late 1950s, I had been in amood
That didn'tno fiction at all In the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, I wrote two science-fiction novels and aof well over a hundred short stories - but about eighty percent of what I wrote was nonfiction
One of thethe Foundation series was reat science-fiction writer, Lester del Rey He was constantly telling gesting plot devices He even told Larry Ashmead, then my editor at Doubleday, that if I refused to writeto take on the task
When Ashan another Foundation novel out of sheer desperation I called it "Lightning Rod" and es before other tasks called es were put away and additional years passed
In January 1977, Cathleen Jordan, then ested I do "an important book - a Foundation novel, perhaps" I said, "I'd rather do an autobiography," and I did - 640,000 words of it