Here’s a nice Richard Powers cover from 1962, with elements typical of his art: Multicolored, curved, geometric, mobile-like shapes; a weird, irregularly-shaped, dented, floating, metallic king of thingy; a figure garbed in a space-suit. (Well, it looks like a space-suit!)
Like many of the images of “people” in Powers’ art, the space explorer’s outfit looks detailed and ornate, but on closer inspection, this arises from a series of rings or ridges covering the garment, giving it the suggestion rather than the reality of detail.
But, it still looks cool.
The “lower” of the two images, appearing on the book’s back cover, is simply a reproduction of the art on the front cover, sans text.
As for the stories within the book? Though I have read them all (some years ago!), none particularly currently stand out in memory. Yet, in a larger sense, I was always impressed by the works of Zenna Henderson (“The People” series), Ward Moore (author of one of the best time travel stories I’ve ever read; fully worthy of a mini-series on Netflix or Amazon Prime (hint, hint, Mr. Bezos!): “Bring the Jubilee”), and, Manly Wade Wellman.
Contents
Walk Like A Mountain, by Manly Wade Wellman, June, 1955
Men of Iron, by Guy Endore, Fall, 1949
Rabbits to The Moon, by Raymond E. Banks, July, 1959
The Certificate, by Avram Davidson, March, 1959
The Sealman, by John Mansfield, July, 1955
The Sky People, by Poul Anderson, March, 1959
The Causes, by Idris Seabright, June, 1952
The Hypnoglyph, by John Anthony, July, 1953
A Tale of The Thirteenth Floor, by Ogden Nash, July, 1955
Spud and Cochise, by Oliver La Forge, December, 1957
Unto The Fourth Generation, by Isaac Asimov, April, 1959
Jordan, by Zenna Henderson, March, 1959
Will You Wait?, by Alfred Bester, March, 1959
Proof Positive, by Graham Greene, August, 1952
Shock Treatment, by J. Francis McComas, April, 1956 (From 9 Tales of Space and Time, May, 1954)
Gandolphus, by Anthony Boucher, June, 1952
The Last Shall Be First, by Robert P. Mills, August, 1958
A Trick Or Two, by John Novotny, July, 1957
Lot’s Daughter, by Ward Moore, October, 1954
Saturnian Celia, by Horace Walpole, April, 1957 (May, 1774. First known to have been published in The Letters of Horace Walpole, 1903)
Fear Is A Business, by Theodore Sturgeon, April, 1956
Meeting of Relations, by John Collier, January, 1959 (From The Yale Review, December, 1941)
First Lesson, by Mildred Clingerman, December, 1956
To Fell A Tree, by Robert F. Young, July, 1959
Reference
A Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction, at Internet Speculative Fiction Database