The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum

Stanley Weinbaum was a chemical engineer who submitted his work to Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and Amazing Stories. Isaac Asimov introduces him as one of the greats, before the Golden Age, and Robert Bloch fondly remembers the short time he spent with the author before Stanley Weinbaum died of throat cancer at age 33.

In between intro and epilog are a raft of good stories. Three of the stories are sequels, sharing and continuing characters - a rare treat in an anthology. Several of the stories have chemistry at their roots, through biology, botany, and rocketry. For stories ranging from 1934 to 37, they are accurate to the extraterrestrial science of the day.

Checking isfdb I see that there are further stories about Ham Hammond and Professor Manderpootz, and I will have to track down collections that contain them. Or perhaps just read the magazines they were published in, which are increasingly available online.