Sir Kingsley William Amis – Literary Art and Illustration

Though their literary oeuvres extended well beyond the field of science-fiction, Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest collaborated as editors of the Spectrum anthologies, which were published in hardback format from 1961 through 1966 (except for 1964, when no such title appeared), and paperback from 1963 through 1968. Otherwise, the bulk of their work in the genre was in the realm of essays, reviews, and poems.

Spectrum – shown below – was listed under that title for editions published from 1961 through 1963, and reissued until the title Spectrum I for volumes published from 1964 through 1971. Richard Powers was the cover artist for this first volume of the series – Spectrum – while Paul Lehr’s paintings were featured on the covers of Spectrum II.

Powers’ cover art for this volume has the hallmarks of his covers of other anthologies dating from this period: Floating indefinable objects, a distant sort of city-scape, diminutive anthropomorphic figures, and, rather than a person with a recognizable face and physiognomy, a vaguely metallic, vaguely organic, vaguely human, bulbous-eyed figure walking across the foreground. Where’s it going?