The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying is a 1972 collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. Each story is accompanied by commentary by the author, who gives details about his life and his literary achievements in the period in which he wrote the story, effectively amounting to a sort of autobiography for the years 1938 to 1949. (The book was followed by Before the Golden Age in 1974 and Buy Jupiter and Other Stories in 1975, which also included autobiographical material.) The book is dedicated to John W. Campbell, the editor who bought many of the stories collected in this book. Contents "The Callistan Menace" (published 1940) "Ring Around the Sun" (1940) "The Magnificent Possession" (1940) "Trends" (1939) "The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use" (1939) "Black Friar of the Flame" (1942), novelette "Half-Breed" (1940), novelette, Half-Breed series #1 "The Secret Sense" (1941) "Homo Sol" (1940), Homo Sol series #1 "Half-Breeds on Venus" (1940), novelette, Half-Breed series #2 "The Imaginary" (1942), Homo Sol series #2 "Heredity" (1941), novelette "History" (1941) "Christmas on Ganymede" (1942) "The Little Man on the Subway" (1950) "The Hazing" (1942), Homo Sol series #3 "Super-Neutron" (1941) "Not Final!" (1941), Jovians series #1 "Legal Rites" (1950), novelette "Time Pussy" (1942), Probability Zero series "Author! Author!" (1964), novelette "Death Sentence" (1943) "Blind Alley" (1945), Galactic Empire series "No Connection" (1948) "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" (1948), Thiotimoline series #1 "The Red Queen's Race" (1949), novelette "Mother Earth" (1949), novelette, Robot series Lost stories In an appendix to The Early Asimov, the author lists the first sixty stories he wrote in the late 1930s and 1940s. In the commentary throughout the book, he notes that eleven of those stories were never sold and were eventually lost. However two of the "lost" stories were found and published decades later (after The Early Asimov had been published). "Cosmic Corkscrew", Asimov's first story, was written between 29 May 1937 and 19 June 1938. The story, 9000 words long, was about a man who traveled into the future to find the Earth recently deserted. Due to the quantum nature of time, he could not travel back in time a short distance to find out what happened. Asimov submitted it on 21 June to John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding Science Fiction, who rejected it. The story never sold and was eventually lost. "This Irrational Planet", Asimov's fourth story, was written in