First edition. The first autobiographical volume published by the distinguished astronomer Sir Fred Hall (1915-2001), ‘one of the most brilliant, colourful, and influential astronomers of the twentieth century’ (ODNB). The Small World of Fred Hoyle covers Hoyle’s youth in Yorkshire and his student years at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was ‘a research student under Paul Dirac (a satisfactory arrangement because Dirac never liked supervising students and Hoyle did not need supervision)’ (op. cit.). The book closes with the award of a research fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge in 1939 and Hoyle’s marriage to Barbara Clark on 28 December 1939. The Small World of Fred Hoyle was followed by Home is where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist’s Life in 1994.