"Pebble in the Sky" was originally written in the summer of 1947 under the title "Grow Old with Me" for "Startling Stories", whose editor Sam Merwin, Jr. had approached Asimov to write a forty thousand word short novel for the magazine. The title was a misquotation of Robert Browning's "Rabbi ben Ezra", the first few lines of which (starting "Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be...") were included in the final novel. It was rejected by "Startling Stories" on the basis that the magazine's emphasis was more on adventure than science-heavy fiction (despite the editor inviting Asimov to write the latter as an experiment for the magazine), and again by John W. Campbell, Asimov's usual editor. In 1949, Doubleday editor Walter I. Bradbury accepted the story on the suggestion of Frederik Pohl, on the condition it was expanded to seventy thousand words and the title changed to something more science fiction oriented; it was published in January 1950 as "Pebble in the Sky". "Grow Old With Me" was later published in its original form along with other draft stories in "The Alternate Asimovs" in 1986.