As well as being a photographer and an avid collector of photobooks, Martin Parr has accumulated an obscure and eclectic collection of ephemera. Over the past twenty years Martin Parr has been adding to his collection USSR space dog memorabilia, produced during the space race in the 1950s between the USSR and the USA.

The first canine cosmonaut was Laika, meaning ‘barker’; Belka and Strelka were soon to follow and were the first dogs to successfully return to Earth safely. The space dogs were hugely celebrated. With a combination of national pride and propaganda, they began appearing on stamps, postcards, souvenirs, films, clocks alongside much other memorabilia.

Produced to coincide with the 50th anniversary of man landing on the moon, this book - edited by Martin Parr - tells the story of the space dogs, illustrated with Parr’s collection of vintage space-dog ephemera.