Foundation (Asimov novel)

Foundation is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. It is the first book in the Foundation Trilogy (which later expanded into the Foundation series). Foundation is a cycle of five interrelated short stories, first published as a single book by Gnome Press in 1951. Collectively they tell the early story of the Foundation, an institute founded by psychohistorian Hari Seldon to preserve the best of galactic civilization after his predicted collapse of the Galactic Empire.

Publication history

On August 1, 1941, Isaac Asimov proposed to John W. Campbell of Astounding Science Fiction that he write a short story set in a slowly declining Galactic Empire, based on the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Campbell liked the idea; by the end of a two-hour meeting, Asimov planned to write a series of stories depicting the fall of the first Galactic Empire and the rise of the second. Asimov wrote seven more stories for Campbell's magazine over eight years, and they were later collected into three book volumes known as The Foundation Trilogy (1951–1953).

Of these, "Foundation" (retitled as "The Encyclopedists" for the book collection) was published in Astounding in May 1942; "Bridle and Saddle" (retitled "The Mayors" for the collection) in June 1942; "The Big and the Little" (retitled "The Merchant Princes" for the collection) in August 1944; and "The Wedge" (retitled "The Traders" for the collection) in October 1944. Collected as Foundation in 1951, these four stories were accompanied by "The Psychohistorians", a book-exclusive prologue story. The remaining four novellas were collected as Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953).