Young Writers Society

I recently came across some Isaac Asimov books. I have no idea when they were printed, the most recent date I could find was a 1969 copyright. The books I have are Nine Tomorrows, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation (all contained in a cardboard "The Foundation Trilogy" box, minus Ni.To.).

The books were all stored in similar conditions (a dark drawer in a dark, locked closet undisturbed for probably 5-15 years, maybe), although the 3 Foundation books were together in the box. The outer page edges are all red, every page. The actual surface of the page is an old yellow. The red is only on the edges. Nine Tomorrows has some kind of dust in the pages (black beads the size of crumbs, where the heck have these books been?), and the page edges are more pink, returning to a yellow at the corners.

So, is this intentional? Were the books printed like this? Any idea when the books were printed? What might cause book pages to turn red on the outside only?

If you haven't read it yet, the Foundation Trilogy is a great read -- a must read if you're a sci-fi fan because it's influenced a lot of modern sci-fi.

Anyhow, the red edges are probably intentional and are what is called a publisher's stain. Stains can be just purely decorative, but they usually serve a double function in that they can also protect the page edges. I found this page that has more info:
http://www.mywingsbooks.com/coll-terms/edg01_.shtml

That stain picture looks exactly like it! And, I found out the printing date by looking up the ISBN, it's 1975.

Good to know that I'm neither crazy nor experiencing some strange chemical reaction...

Thanks, Nate!

In other news, if you want @Nate to respond promptly to anything, just bring up Asimov's name. XD