I recently got my hands on a copy of Astounding Science-Fiction from May 1942 and wanted to upload it here as a .pdf, partly to share it (because there aren’t many copies out there) and partly to preserve it (because being 73 years old, and produced on very cheap paper, it’s not in the best condition and won’t last forever).
There’s movements to preserve these important literary documents on the internet, but as far as I know the May 1942 issue isn’t available online. So here it is.
Leave a comment if you have any problems opening the file. It’s not the best quality, because ideally I’d need to scan it in rather than photograph it, but that would damage the spine and the binding. Hopefully it’s readable, and better than nothing!
Share and enjoy!™
Gabriel Schenk 
Thanks for sharing, I’ve searched this issue for a long time.
You’re welcome! Glad it was useful.
Thank you so much for scanning this – I’d been looking for Alfred Bester’s “Push of a Finger” for quite a bit, and I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere until you posted these scans.
Glad it was helpful! Hadn’t even heard of “Push of a Finger” until you mentioned it; I bought the issue for the Asimov alone. Now I’ve looked it up I can see why it’s an important find. May 1942 was quite the issue!
Thank you 🙂 I have been looking for this for a long time, I was curious if there were any differences between modern Foundation and the original one published in 1942. I did not know the beginning of the modern Foundation is an add-on to the original stroy. I did not read the whole ’42 edition yet but from a quick scan I can see there are subtle changes at wording as well.
Again thank you 🙂 you have a great edition in your hand
You’re very welcome. Glad it was helpful. Yeah, it’s very interesting to see those changes… even subtle ones can make a big difference I think. And the illustrations add a lot as well.