SOVIET AERONAUTICS

Potolok mira [The Ceiling of the World].  By A. Harry, L. Kassil’.  130, [2] pp.  Illustrated throughout with photographs and photomontage.  Small folio, 265 x 205 mm., bound in publisher’s boards with the original photographic dust-jacket. [Moscow]: Sovetskaia literatura, 1934. First Edition.  A book created to celebrate the record breaking stratospheric ascent achieved by Soviet engineers and pilots in 1933 in which a manned balloon ascended 19000 meters over Moscow.  The achievement is documented through dozens of photographs, several of which are artistic photomontages.  Another dramatic non-photographic illustration features a double page spread where a plane and a rocket took off above the Palace of Soviets and crowded city at night.  Design was produced by VKUTEMAS graduate, Efim Pernikov (1903-1966) who worked on posters and books tending to agitational photomontages. For this edition, he used pictures provided by photograph A. Sorokin.  Despite the large limitation as is comm