Perelman, Ya. Tsiolkovsky: Life and Technical Ideas (Tsiolkovskii: Zhizn' i tekhnicheskie idei). 1937. In Russian.

Перельман, Яков Исидорович (1882-1942). Циолковский : жизнь и технические идеи / Я. И. Перельман ; рисунки М. Днепровского ; портреты В. Любимова.
Москва ; Ленинград : ОНТИ, Главная редакция научно-популярной и юношеской литературы, 1937. 166 с. : ил., 5 л. ил. ; 17 см.
Издательский коленкоровый переплёт. Тираж 30 000 экз.
Переплёт в удовлетворительном состоянии: ткань значительно загрязнена пятнами по всей поверхности. Блок в хорошем состоянии: бумага равномерно пожелтела; страницы полные.
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Perelman, Yakov Isidorovich (1882-1942). Tsiolkovskii: zhizn' i tekhnicheskie idei [Tsiolkovsky: Life and Technical Ideas] / Ia. I. Perelman ; drawings by M. Dneprovskii ; portraits by V. Liubimov.
Moscow ; Leningrad : ONTI (United Scientific and Technical Publishing House), Popular Science and Youth Literature Division, 1937. 166 pp. : illustrations, 5 plates ; 17 cm.
Publisher's cloth binding. Print run of 30,000 copies.
Binding fair: cloth heavily stained and soiled throughout. Text block good: uniformly age-toned; pages complete.

A rare early biography of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) - the self-taught schoolteacher from Kaluga who pioneered the mathematical theory of rocketry and cosmonautics - written by his personal friend Yakov Isidorovich Perelman (1882-1942) just two years after Tsiolkovsky's death. Perelman was the Soviet Union's most celebrated popular science writer, author of the enormously successful "Entertaining" series - Entertaining Physics, Entertaining Mathematics, Entertaining Astronomy - translated into dozens of languages and read by millions across the Soviet world. Having known Tsiolkovsky personally, he writes from direct acquaintance with the inventor and his ideas. Part I of the book covers Tsiolkovsky's biography from his ancestors and childhood, through his years as a self-taught provincial schoolteacher in Kaluga, his long struggle for recognition in tsarist Russia, and his final years under Soviet power; Part II examines his technical contributions: the all-metal rigid dirigible, the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation and its implications, rocket propulsion mechanics, interplanetary travel, and the "Zvezdolet" concept. The chronological table on pages 165-166 records key dates through Tsiolkovsky's death on 19 September 1935 at 78 years of age. The book appeared at a moment of intense Soviet interest in rocket technology and astronautics - the theoretical foundations of the Soviet space program were already being laid - and Perelman's dual authority as a scientist's friend and as the country's premier popular science communicator made this the definitive early account. Perelman himself perished in the Siege of Leningrad in 1942, making all of his pre-war publications documents of a life cut short.