Bradbury, Ray
Entry updated 22 July 2024. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
(1920-2012) US screenwriter, poet and author; in 1934 his father, a power lineman who was having trouble gaining employment in Michigan during the Depression, moved with the family to Los Angeles; memories and images of southern California would be central to Bradbury's work, though the small-town Midwest always remained important in his stories. Bradbury discovered sf Fandom in 1937, meeting Ray Harryhausen, Forrest J Ackerman and Henry Kuttner, and began publishing his Fanzine Futuria Fantasia in 1939. His first professional sale was "Pendulum" with Henry Hasse for Super Science Stories in November 1941. In that year he met a number of sf professionals, including Leigh Brackett, who generously coached him in writing techniques. He later collaborated with her, completing her Lorelei of the Red Mist (Summer 1946 Planet Stories; rev Fall 1953 Tops in Science Fiction; original text 2017 dos).
By 1943 Bradbury's style was beginning to jell: poetic, evocative, consciously symbolic, with strong nostalgic elements and a leaning towards the macabre – his work was always more Fantasy and Horror than sf, with a high proportion of his voluminous output being Fantastika broadly understood. All the same, he did write enough sf that he became and remained in memory a central figure in the Golden Age of SF. Many of his early stories, mostly written 1943-1947, were collected in his first book, Dark Carnival (coll 1947; cut 1948; cut vt The Small Assassin 1962), the book, from Arkham House, being one of the first individual volumes in America to contain anything like Genre SF or fantasy; several of the stories here included had originally appeared in Weird Tales. All but four of the stories in the later The October Country (coll 1955; cut 1961; exp 1991) had already appeared in Dark Carnival, but many were revised for this new book. Bradbury used occasional pseudonyms in those early years; in non-sf magazines he appeared as Edward Banks, William Elliott, D R Banat, Leonard Douglas and Leonard Spaulding, and he wrote one story, "Referent" (October 1948 Thrilling Wonder), under the House Name Brett Sterling. Much of his early sf was colourful Space Opera, and appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories and Planet Stories.
One of these latter stories was "The Million Year Picnic" (Summer 1946 Planet Stories). Later it was to appear in his second book, which remains Bradbury's greatest work, The Martian Chronicles (coll of linked stories 1950; complete edition rev vt 2010) [for details of intervening versions see Checklist]. This book, which could be regarded as an episodic novel, made Bradbury's reputation. Almost at once he found a new market for short stories in the Slicks, magazines such as Esquire, Saturday Evening Post, McCall's and Collier's Weekly. Of the hundreds of stories published over long career, which ended only with his death, only a handful originally appeared in SF Magazines. This was one of the most significant breakthroughs into the general market made by any Genre-SF writer.
The Martian Chronicles is an amazing work. Its closely interwoven stories, linked by recurrent images and themes, tell of the repeated attempts by humans to colonize Mars, of the way they bring their old prejudices with them, including expectations that settlement on Mars could safely replicate their experience of California suburban life, and of their repeated, ambiguous meetings with the shape-changing Martians (see Shapeshifters). Despite the sf scenario, there is no hard Technology. The mood is of loneliness and nostalgia; a pensive regret suffuses the book. Colonists find, in "The Third Expedition" (Fall 1948 Planet Stories as "Mars is Heaven!"), a perfect Midwest township waiting for them in the Martian desert; throughout the book appearance and reality slip, dreamlike, from the one to the other; desires and fantasy are reified but turn out to be tainted. At the beginning, in a typical Bradbury image, the warmth of rocket jets brings a springlike thaw to the frozen Ohio landscape; at the end, human children look into the canal to see the Martians, and find them in their own reflections. All the Bradbury themes that were later to be repeated, sometimes too often, find their earliest shapes here: the anti-technological bias, the Pastoral celebration of simplicity and innocence as imaged in small-town life, the sense of loss as youth changes to adulthood, and the danger and attraction of masks, be they Hallowe'en, carnival or, as here, alien mimicry. The book was dramatized as a television miniseries, The Martian Chronicles (1980).
For the next few years the evocative versatility of Bradbury's imagery kept a freshness and an ebullience unspoiled by occasional overwriting; what later came to look like a too cosy heartland sentiment was generally redeemed by the precision and strangeness of its expression. Bradbury's talents are very clear in the first of his few novels, Fahrenheit 451 (February 1951 Galaxy as "The Fireman"; with 2 short stories as coll 1953) [for further details see Checklist below]. In its Dystopian future, in which books are burned because ideas are dangerous, we follow the painful spiritual growth of its renegade hero, a book-burning "fireman" and secret reader who finally flees, pursued by a Mechanical Hound attuned to his body chemistry, to a pastoral society of book "memorizers". An interesting film version, Fahrenheit 451 (1966), conveys as much of its director François Truffaut (1932-1984) as it does of Bradbury. Bradbury himself contributed to the Videogame Fahrenheit 451 (1984), which is positioned as a sequel to the novel.
Of strong interest for close readers of Bradbury was the Green Town sequence comprising Dandelion Wine (1950-1957 var mags; fixup 1957) and its continuation or sequel Farewell Summer (fixup 2006) – the latter comprising material cut from Dandelion Wine by its first publisher, as explained in an afterword – plus further associated tales assembled as Summer Morning, Summer Night (coll of linked stories 2007). Throughout, an adolescent life is recorded in terms of a single summer in a small town in a series of vignettes. The Magic Realist intensity of the tales, and their clear autobiographical element, make them central texts for the understanding of Bradbury's imagination. Also of interest was Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), an episodic, rather heavily symbolic Mysterious Stranger tale of Gothic transformations in a small town, possibly written in homage to Charles G Finney's The Circus of Dr Lao (1935), which Bradbury had already anthologized in The Circus of Dr Lao and other Improbable Stories (anth 1956), which contains only fantasies.
Bradbury's vintage years are normally thought to be 1946-1955; his other short-story collections of that period are certainly superior to those he produced later. They begin with The Illustrated Man (coll 1951; cut 1952), in which the tales are given a linking framework; they are all seen as magical tattoos which, springing from the body of the protagonist, become living stories. Three were filmed by Jack Smight as The Illustrated Man (1968). Later collections are The Golden Apples of the Sun (coll 1953; cut 1953) and A Medicine for Melancholy (coll 1959; rev vt The Day It Rained Forever 1959). These last two books were combined as Twice Twenty Two (omni 1966). No later Bradbury collection approaches the above in quality. The other important collection of early stories, drawing from many of the books already listed, is The Vintage Bradbury (coll 1965), which was superseded by the massive retrospective The Stories of Ray Bradbury (coll 1980; UK paperback 1983 2vols); much of this material, along with later work, also appears in the similarly massive self-selected Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (coll 2003; vt Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2 2008).
In the late 1950s and 1960s Bradbury's mainstream reputation continued to grow. His stories eventually appeared in well over 800 anthologies. In the USA, at least, he was regarded by many critics as a major literary talent. Sf as a genre can take little credit for this: Bradbury's themes are traditionally American and, although early on he often chose to render them in sf imagery, it would be mistaken to see Bradbury as basically an sf writer. He is, in effect, a fantasist, both whimsical and sombre, in an older, Pastoral tradition. The high regard in which he is held by sf readers and critics can in fact be justified on the basis of a handful of works, with The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, and many stories from the late 1940s and the 1950s among them; it is here, too, that Bradbury's small but very influential contribution to the field is located, which had much to do with sf's ceasing to be regarded as belonging to a genre ghetto.
Bradbury was always a prolific and successful writer of stories, but some found his work from 1960s onwards to be increasingly disappointing, especially his plays and poetry, which have often been described as both stiltedly rhetorical and oversentimental. On the other hand, some of his theatrical work was well received (see Theatre). Among those of his subsequent collections to include a substantial amount of previously uncollected work, some tales being initially published decades earlier, are The Machineries of Joy (coll 1964; with one story cut, 1964), I Sing the Body Electric (coll 1969), Long After Midnight (coll 1976), The Toynbee Convector (coll 1988), One More for the Road (coll 2002) and We'll Always Have Paris (coll 2009); it was I Sing the Body Electric that received the most adverse criticism for its alleged soft-centredness.
Bradbury's work in film was interesting. Two important early sf B-movies were loosely based on his writing: It Came from Outer Space (1953) was developed from his own screen treatment "The Meteor", and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) from "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (23 June 1951 Saturday Evening Post; vt "The Fog Horn" in The Golden Apples of the Sun, coll 1953). Neither, however, has any perceptible Bradbury quality. By far his best screenplay was that for the best film version of Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1956) directed by John Huston (1906-1987), who took a share of the writing credit; Bradbury's version is presented separately as Moby Dick: A Screenplay (2008). A Radio play broadcast by BBC Radio 3 in 1968, and subsequently adapted for the stage, reached a final incarnation as a novella, Leviathan '99 (2007), a Space Opera about obsession, Spaceships and a great white Comet. Green Shadows, White Whale (1992), a quasi-fictional narrative set in Ireland (where the original film was shot) further exposes Bradbury's immersion in both tale and Huston.
The eighteen-minute animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright (1962) was based on a Bradbury story and screenplay, as was the made-for-tv film Picasso Summer (1972), based on Bradbury's "In a Season of Calm Weather" (January 1957 Playboy; vt "The Picasso Summer" in The Stories of Ray Bradbury, coll 1980), on which he received a screenplay credit as Douglas Spaulding. Several Russian films (see Russia) have been based on Bradbury stories, including Vel'd (1987), based on "The Veldt" (23 September 1950 Saturday Evening Post as "The World the Children Made"; vt in The Illustrated Man, coll 1951). Television adaptations of his work have appeared in The Twilight Zone (both series) and, notably, Ray Bradbury Theater (1985-1986; 1988-1992) where the adaptations were by Bradbury himself. Many of Bradbury's stories also received Comic-book adaptation: sixteen can be found in two books, The Autumn People (graph coll 1965) and Tomorrow Midnight (graph coll 1966), the first being horror and the second sf. (See EC Comics.) A late film adaptation – financially a flop – was A Sound of Thunder (2005), based on "A Sound of Thunder" (June 28 1952 Collier's Weekly).
Just as it had come to seem, in the 1980s, that Bradbury was content to become a grand old man (he won the World Fantasy Award in 1977 and the SFWA Grand Master Award in 1989 for his lifetime achievements), his career took a new turn. Like many sf writers in the 1940s he had published some crime fiction in the mystery pulps – some collected in A Memory of Murder (coll 1984) – and now in the 1980s he turned to crime fiction again. Death Is a Lonely Business (1985) and its sequel A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990) were his strongest work for many years: some of the old density and power returned in their almost surreal conflations of appearance and reality. They are of strong associational interest for readers of his sf and fantasy (deliberately returning to many of the key metaphors of his work in these fields, with the canals of Venice, Los Angeles, standing perhaps for those of Mars), and are good examples of Recursive fiction, in that both are to a degree romans à clef, with recognizable sf characters in them, not least a 1950s version of Bradbury himself. Ray Harryhausen, for example, appears thinly disguised in the second, which revolves around the film world.
A touching symbol of the high regard in which many of Bradbury's peers held him is the interesting anthology of stories in Bradbury settings, The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury (anth 1991), edited by William F Nolan and Martin H Greenberg. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2010 the Nebula category for movies and other dramatic work was renamed as the Ray Bradbury Award. The site where the Mars rover Curiosity landed on 6 August 2012 was named Bradbury Landing by NASA. [PN]
see also: Adventure; Aliens; Anti-Intellectualism in SF; Arts; Asteroids; Rachel Bloom; Children in SF; Christ; Clichés; Colonization of Other Worlds; Crime and Punishment; Dinosaurs; End of the World; Eschatology; Galaxy Science Fiction; Gandalf Award; Invasion; Living Worlds; Longevity in Writers; The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; Media Landscape; Messiahs; Mythology; Poetry; Politics; Psychology; Reincarnation; Religion; Retro Hugo; Robots; Rockets; SF Music; Seiun Award; Sex; Space Flight; Supernatural Creatures; Television; Terraforming; Thrilling Wonder Stories; Time Paradoxes; Time Travel; Transportation; Venus.
Ray Douglas Bradbury
born Waukegan, Illinois: 22 August 1920
died Los Angeles, California: 6 June 2012
works
series
Green Town
- Dandelion Wine (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1957) [fixup: Green Town: hb/Robert Vickrey]
- Farewell Summer (New York: HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2006) [fixup: continuation of the above: Green Town: hb/Tom Lau]
- Summer Morning, Summer Night (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2007) [coll of linked stories: Green Town: hb/Ray Bradbury]
Ray Bradbury Chronicles
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 1 (New York: Bantam Books, 1992) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: pb/Dave Gibbons]
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 2 (New York: NBM Publications, 1992) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: hb/Bruce Jensen]
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 3 (New York: NBM Publications, 1992) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: hb/Steve Truman and Steve Fastner]
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 4 (New York: NBM Publications, 1993) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: hb/Daniel Brereton]
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 5 (New York: NBM Publications, 1994) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: hb/Dave McKean]
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 6 (New York: NBM Publications, 1994) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: hb/Jon J Muth]
- The Ray Bradbury Chronicles Volume 7 (New York: NBM Publications, 1994) [coll: graphic adaptations of stories: Ray Bradbury Chronicles: hb/Kelly Jones and (back cover) Jim Steranko]
Collected Stories
- The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition: Volume One: 1938-1943 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2011) [coll: edited by William F Touponce and Jonathan R Eller: Collected Stories: hb/photographic]
- The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition: Volume Two: 1943-1944 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2014) [coll: edited by William F Touponce and Jonathan R Eller: Collected Stories: hb/photographic]
- The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition: Volume Three: 1944-1945 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2017) [coll: edited by William F Touponce and Jonathan R Eller: Collected Stories: hb/photographic]
individual titles
- The Martian Chronicles (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1950) [coll of closely linked stories: hb/Arthur Lidov]
- The Silver Locusts (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951) [rev vt of the above: deleting "Usher II" and adding "The Fire Balloons": hb/Roy Sanford]
- The Martian Chronicles (London: Science Fiction Book Club, 1953) [rev vt of the above: adding "The Wilderness": hb/nonpictorial]
- The Martian Chronicles (New York: Time Books, 1963) [exp of the above: adding "The Fire Balloons" and "The Wilderness": pb/Marie Jones]
- The Martian Chronicles: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition (New York: Doubleday, 1990) [rev vt of the above: adding new introduction and deleting "The Wilderness": hb/Michael Whelan]
- The Martian Chronicles (New York: William Morrow/Avon, 1997) [rev of the above: all stories updated with "Way in the Middle of the Air" deleted: hb/Tim O'Brien]
- The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2010) [rev vt of the above: adding twenty-one stories and other material: illus/hb/Les Edwards as Edward Miller]
- The Silver Locusts (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951) [rev vt of the above: deleting "Usher II" and adding "The Fire Balloons": hb/Roy Sanford]
- Fahrenheit 451 (New York: Ballantine Books, 1953) [coll: ie, Fahrenheit 451 plus two short stories: hb version is subsequent to that listed here: pb/Joe Mugnaini]
- Fahrenheit 451 (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954) [cut version of the above: containing title novel only: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- Phoenix 451 (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 2022) [coll: comprising five versions of Fahrenheit 451 plus other material: hb/]
- Switch on the Night (New York: Pantheon, 1955) [chap: children's novel: hb/Madeleine Gekiere]
- Something Wicked This Way Comes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962) [hb/Gray Foy]
- The Halloween Tree (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1972) [illus/hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Ghosts of Forever (New York: Rizzoli, 1981) with Aldo Sessa [illus/hb/Aldo Sessa]
- The Novels of Ray Bradbury (London: Granada, 1984) [omni of Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes: hb/]
- Death Is a Lonely Business (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1985) [hb/Fred Marcellino]
- A Graveyard for Lunatics (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1990) [sequel to the above: hb/Wendell Minor]
- Green Shadows, White Whale (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1992) [memoir couched as novel: hb/Edward Sorel]
- Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines: A Fable (New York: Avon Books, 1998) [novella: chap: illus/hb/Chris Lane]
- From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance (New York: William Morrow, 2001) [fixup: stories of the Elliott family of Vampires: hb/Charles Addams]
- Let's All Kill Constance (New York: William Morrow, 2003) [hb/José Luis Merino]
- Where Everything Ends (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2003) [omni of the above plus Death Is a Lonely Business, A Graveyard for Lunatics and the title story: hb/Jon Foster]
- Ray Bradbury: Novels and Story Cycles (New York: The Library of America, 2021) [omni of The Martin Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes: hb/photographic]
- Ray Bradbury: The Illustrated Man, The October Country, Other Stories (New York: The Library of America, 2022) [omni/coll: indicated titles plus short works: hb/photographic]
collections and stories
- Dark Carnival (Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1947) [coll: hb/George Burrows]
- Dark Carnival (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 2001) [coll: exp of the above: hb/Ray Bradbury]
- The Illustrated Man (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1951) [coll: hb/Butchkes]
- The Illustrated Man (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1952) [rev of the above: hb/John Minton]
- The Illustrated Man (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 1996) [coll: exp of the above: hb/Ray Bradbury]
- The Golden Apples of the Sun (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1953) [coll: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Golden Apples of the Sun (London: Rupert Hart-Davies, 1953) [cut version of the above: omitting two stories: hb/]
- The Martian Chronicles/The Illustrated Man/The Golden Apples of the Sun (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2011) [omni of the above two plus The Martian Chronicles: hb/Vaggelis]
- The October Country (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955) [coll: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The October Country (London: Ace UK, 1961) [cut version of above: drops seven stories and adds "The Traveller": pb/]
- The October Country (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 1997) [coll: with additional nonfiction material: hb/Ray Bradbury]
- Switch on the Night (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1955) [story: chap: illus/hb/Madeleine Gekiere]
- Sun and Shadow (Berkeley, California: Quenian Press, 1957) [story: chap: first appeared 1953 Reporter: pb/]
- A Medicine for Melancholy (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1959) [coll: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Day It Rained Forever (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959) [coll: rev vt of the above: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories (New York: Avon Books, 1998) [exp of the above: pb/Tim O'Brien]
- Twice 22 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1966) [omni of the above plus The Golden Apples of the Sun: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Small Assassin (London: Ace, 1962) [coll: pb/]
- R Is for Rocket (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1962) [coll: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Pedestrian (Glendale, California: Roy Squires, 1964) [story: chap: first appeared 7 August 1951 in The Reporter: pb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Machineries of Joy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964) [coll: hb/Isadore Seltzer]
- The Machineries of Joy (London: Rupert Hart-Davies, 1964) [cut version of the above: omitting one story: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Vintage Bradbury: Ray Bradbury's Own Selection of his Best Stories (New York: Vintage Books, 1965) [coll: pb/Peter Rauch]
- S Is for Space (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1966) [coll: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- R is for Rocket / S is for Space (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2019) [omni of the two titles: illus/Glenn Chadbourne: hb/Tomislav Tikulin]
- I Sing the Body Electric! (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1969) [hb/Peter Bramley]
- I Sing the Body Electric! And Other Stories (New York: Avon Books, 1998) [exp vt of the above: pb/]
- That Son of Richard III (Glendale, California: Roy A Squires, 1974) [story: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
- Ray Bradbury (London: Harrap, 1975) [coll: hb/]
- That Ghost, That Bride of Time (Glendale, California: Roy Squires, 1976) [story: chap: pb/]
- Long After Midnight (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1976) [coll: hb/from John Henry Fuseli]
- Long After Midnight (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2010) [coll: exp of the above, with one story added: hb/from Francisco de Goya]
- The Fog Horn and Other Stories (Tokyo: Kinseido, 1977) [coll: chap: pb/]
- The Mummies of Guanajuato (New York: Harry N Abrams, 1978) [story: chap: illustrated version with photos by Archie Lieberman of "The Next in Line" (in Dark Carnival, coll 1947): hb/]
- To Sing Strange Songs (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1979) [coll: pb/Kathy Wyatt]
- The Aqueduct: (A Martian Chronicle) (Glendale, California: Roy A Squires, 1979) [story: chap: pb/]
- The Ghosts of Forever (New York: Rizzoli, 1980) [coll: hb/Aldo Sessa]
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1980) [hb/R D Scudellari]
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Volume 1 (London: Granada, 1983) [coll: cut vt of the above: publishing its first half: pb/]
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Volume 2 (London: Granada, 1983) [coll: cut vt of the above: publishing its second half: pb/]
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Volume 1 (London: Harper/Voyager, 2008) [coll: cut vt of the above: contents differ from the 1983 version with the same title: hb/]
- The Last Circus & the Electrocution (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 1980) [coll: chap: hb/]
- Christmas Greetings 1982 (Los Angeles, California: privately printed, 1982) [story: broadsheet: na/]
- The Other Foot (Mankato, Minnesota: Creative Education, 1982) [story: chap: illus/hb/Gary Kelley]
- The Veldt (Logan, Indiana: Perfection Form Co, 1982) [story: chap: appeared 23 September 1950 Saturday Evening Post: pb/]
- Dinosaur Tales (New York: Bantam Books, 1983) [coll: pb/William Stout]
- A Memory of Murder (New York: Dell Books, 1984) [coll: pb/]
- Christmas Greetings: Scanning the Universe (Los Angeles, California: privately printed, 1984) [poem: broadsheet: na/]
- The Fog Horn (Mankato, Minnesota: Creative Education, 1987) [story: chap: first appeared 23 June 1951 Saturday Evening Post as "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms": illus/hb/Gary Kelley]
- The April Witch: A Creative Classic (Mankato, Minnesota: Creative Education, 1987) [story: chap: first appeared 5 April 1952 Saturday Evening Post: illus/hb/Gary Kelley]
- Fever Dream (New York: St Martin's Press/Night Lights, 1987) [story: chap: first appeared September 1948 Weird Tales: portions of "Night Lights" book illustrations glowed in the dark: illus/hb/Darrel Anderson]
- Fahrenheit 451/The Illustrated Man/Dandelion Wine/The Golden Apples of the Sun/The Martian Chronicles (London: Octopus/Heinemann, 1987) [omni of the listed titles: hb/David Nelson]
- The Toynbee Convector (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1988) [coll: hb/Wendell Minor]
- The Toynbee Convector (Atlanta, Georgia: Turner Publishing, 1992) [story: chap: title story from the above: illus/hb/Anita Kunz]
- The Dragon (Round Top, New York: Footsteps Press, 1988) [story: chap: first appeared August 1955 Esquire: illus/Ken Snyder: pb/]
- A Christmas Wish 1988: If Only We Had Taller Been (Los Angeles, California: privately printed, 1988) [poem: broadsheet: na/]
- There Will Come Soft Rains (Logan, Indiana: Perfection Form Co, 1989) [story: chap: pb/]
- A Christmas Wish 1989: The Bread of Beggars, The Wine of Christ (Los Angeles, California: privately printed, 1989) [poem: broadsheet: na/]
- Classic Stories 1 (New York: Bantam Books, 1990) [coll: compilation: pb/Barclay Shaw]
- Classic Stories 1 (New York: Bantam Books, 1995) [coll: exp of the above title: compilation: pb/Barclay Shaw]
- The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories (New York: Avon Books, 1997) [coll: vt of the above: pb/Tim O'Brien]
- A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005) [coll: vt of the above: pb/]
- The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories (New York: Avon Books, 1997) [coll: vt of the above: pb/Tim O'Brien]
- Classic Stories 1 (New York: Bantam Books, 1995) [coll: exp of the above title: compilation: pb/Barclay Shaw]
- Classic Stories 2 (New York: Bantam Books, 1990) [coll: compilation: pb/Don Maitz]
- The Parrot Who Met Papa (Rochester, Minnesota: Pretentious Press, 1991) [story: chap: dos: first appeared January 1972 Playboy: pb/]
- Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (Syracuse, New York: Signal Hill/New Readers Press, 1991) [coll: chap: includes the original story and young readers' study guides: in the publisher's Writers' Voices series: pb/Paul Davis Studio]
- The Smile (Mankato, Minnesota: Creative Education, 1991) [story: chap: first appeared Summer 1952 Fantastic: pb/]
- A Sound of Thunder (Genova, Italy: Cideb, 1994) [story: chap: pb/]
- A Christmas Wish 1994: Go Not with Ruins in Your Mind (Los Angeles, California: privately printed, 1994) [poem: broadsheet: na/]
- Quicker Than the Eye (New York: Avon Books, 1996) [coll: hb/Bernie Fuchs]
- Driving Blind (New York: Avon Books, 1998) [coll: hb/Bernie Fuchs]
- Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines: A Fable (New York: Avon Books, 1998) [novelette: chap: illus/hb/Chris Lane]
- Witness and Celebrate (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 2000) [coll: chap: hb/]
- Time Intervening (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 2001) [story: chap: hb/William F Nolan]
- One More for the Road (New York: William Morrow, 2002) [coll: hb/José Luis Merino]
- Collected Short Stories (Los Angeles, California: Petersen Publishing Co, 2002) [coll: chap: in the publisher's Great Author series: hb/photographic]
- Bradbury Stories: 100 of his Most Celebrated Tales (New York: William Morrow, 2003) [coll: hb/Richard L Aquan]
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Volume 2 (London: Harper/Voyager, 2008) [coll: vt of the above: contents differ from the 1983 version with the same title, see The Stories of Ray Bradbury above: hb/]
- Is That You, Herb? (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Gauntlet Press, 2003) [story: chap: pb/Ray Bradbury]
- The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (New York: William Morrow, 2004) [coll: hb/Ray Bradbury]
- The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (Ossining, New York: Hill House, 2004) [coll: exp of the above with five stories added: hb/Ray Bradbury]
- The Homecoming (London: Collins Design, 2006) [story: graph: text first appeared October 1946 Mademoiselle: illus/hb/Dave McKean]
- Forever and the Earth: Yesterday and Tomorrow Stories (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2006) [coll: hb/Les Edwards as Edward Miller]
- Match to Flame: The Fictional Path to Fahrenheit 451 (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Gauntlet Press, 2006) [coll: stories preceding and influential upon Fahrenheit 451, see above: hb/Don Albright]
- A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2010) [coll: cut vt of the above: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- The Dragon Who Ate His Tail (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Gauntlet Press, 2006) [coll: chap: hb/]
- The Wish (Ossining, New York: Hill House, 2006) [chap: first published December 1973 Woman's Day: hb/]
- Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band is Playing & Leviathan '99 (New York: HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2007) [coll: hb/Tim O'Brien]
- Leviathan '99 (The Easton Press, 2007) [novella: contains title story only from the above: hb/uncredited]
- Moby Dick: A Screenplay (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2008) [screenplay: hb/Jon Foster]
- Skeletons (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2008) [coll: chap: two stories with the same title: pb/Dave McKean]
- A Christmas Wish 2008: Imagine That You Have Been Dead (Los Angeles, California: privately printed, 2008) [story: broadsheet: na/]
- Masks (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 2008) [coll: title novel written 1940s-1950s, plus various unpublished stories: hb/]
- We'll Always Have Paris (New York: William Morrow, 2009) [coll: hb/Tim O'Brien]
- Marionettes, Inc (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2009) [coll: hb/Mark A Nelson]
- Bullet Trick: A Collection of Unpublished Teleplays and Short Stories (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Gauntlet Press, 2009) [coll: hb/]
- The Shop of the Mechanical Insects (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2009) [story: chap: illus/pb/Dave McKean]
- A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2010) [coll: stories in some way associable with Fahrenheit 451 above: hb/Joseph Mugnaini]
- Dawn to Dusk: Cautionary Tales (Springfield, Pennsylvania: Gauntlet Press, 2011) [coll: includes screenplays and other unpublished material: hb/Joseph Mugnaini]
- The Nefertiti-Tut Express: A Story in Screenplay (Glendale, California: RAS Press, 2012) [story: chap: illus/pb/Gary Gianni]
- A Little Journey (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2016) [story: ebook: first appeared August 1951 Galaxy: na/]
- Lorelei of the Red Mist (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2017) with Leigh Brackett: [dos: first appeared Summer 1946 Planet Stories: text follows the 1946 original: pb/Chester Martin]
- Killer, Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury (New York: Hard Case Crime, 2020) [coll: hb/Paul Mann]
- Killer, Come Back to Me (London: Collins Crime Club, 2020) [coll: vt of the above: pb/]
plays
- The Anthem Sprinters; And Other Antics (New York: The Dial Press, 1963) [plays: coll: hb/]
- The Day It Rained Forever: A Comedy in One Act (New York: Samuel French, 1966) [play: chap: pb/]
- The Pedestrian: A Fantasy in One Act (New York: Samuel French, 1966) [play: chap: pb/]
- The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit; And Other Plays (New York: Bantam Books, 1973) [plays: coll: pb/]
- Pillar of Fire, and Other Plays for Today, Tomorrow and Beyond Tomorrow (New York: Bantam Books, 1973) [plays: coll: pb/]
- Kaleidoscope (Woodstock, Illinois: The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1986) [play: chap: written 1965: single play from the above: pb/]
- Forever and the Earth (Athens, Ohio: Caissant and Company, 1984) [play: chap: script for a radio dramatization of the story, which first appeared Spring 1950 Planet Stories: hb/nonpictorial]
- The Veldt (Woodstock, Illinois: The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1988) [play: chap: pb/]
- Falling Upward (Woodstock, Illinois: The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1988) [play: chap: pb/]
- On Stage: A Chrestomathy of his Plays (New York: Donald I Fine, 1991) [plays: omni including The Anthem Sprinters, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Pillar of Fire: hb/]
- It Came from Outer Space (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Gauntlet, 2004) [coll: four 1950s screenplays: hb/]
- Dawn to Dusk (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Gauntlet Press, 2011) [coll: teleplays: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- Nemo! (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2012) [unproduced screenplay based on Winsor McCay's Little Nemo: hb/Charles Vess]
poetry
- Old Ahab's Friend, and Friend to Noah, Speak His Piece (Glendale, California: Roy A Squires, 1971) [poem: chap: pb/]
- When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977) [poetry: coll: hb/Joe Mugnaini]
- Twin Hieroglyphs That Swim the River Dust (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 1978) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/]
- This Attic Where the Meadows Greens (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 1979) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/]
- The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1981) [poetry: coll: hb/Richard Mantel]
- The Love Affair (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 1982) [poetry: coll: plus one story: hb/]
- The Complete Poems of Ray Bradbury (New York: Ballantine Books, 1982) [poetry: omni: contains When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed; Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns and The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope: pb/]
- October (Los Angeles, California: Shottlebop Press, 1983) [poem: chap: written 1940: pb/]
- Long After Ecclesiastes (Santa Anna, California: Gold Stein Press, 1985) [poem: chap: hb/]
- Death Has Lost Its Charm for Me (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 1987) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/]
- The Climate of Palettes (Northridge, California: Lord John Press, 1989) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/nonpictorial]
- Stars (Santa Anna, California: Gold Stein Press, 1993) [poem: chap: hb/]
- The R.B., G.K.C., and G.B.S. Forever Orient Express (Santa Barbara, California: Joshua Odell Editions, 1994) [poem: chap: pb/]
- With Cat for Comforter (Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs-Smith, 1997) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/]
- Dogs Think Every Day Is Christmas (Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs-Smith, 1997) [poem: chap: vt of privately released broadsheet, "Christmas Greeting 1986": pb/]
- Christus Apollo: Cantata Celebrating the Eight Day of Creation and the Promise of the Ninth (Newport Beach, California: Gold Stein Press, 1998) [poem: part book, part sculpture-like artefact by artist D'Ambrosio: hb/D'Ambrosio]
- They Have Not Seen the Stars: The Collected Poems of Ray Bradbury (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Stealth Press, 2002) [poetry: omni: contains When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed; Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns; The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope; This Attic Where the Meadows Green and Death Has Lost Its Charm for Me: hb/]
- I Live By the Invisible (Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland: Salmon Publishing Company, 2002) [poetry: coll: chap: pb/]
- Greentown Tinseltown (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2012) [poetry: coll: hb/Ray Bradbury]
graphic works
- The Autumn People (New York: Ballantine Books, 1965) [coll: graph: horror stories adapted into graphic form by Al Feldstein: illus/various: pb/Frank Frazetta]
- Tomorrow Midnight (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966) [coll: graph: sf stories adapted into graphic form by Al Feldstein: pb/Frank Frazetta]
- The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel (New York: ibooks, 2003) [coll: graph: adaptations of stories: contents partially taken from the Ray Bradbury Chronicles above: pb/Jim Burns]
- Home to Stay!: The Complete Ray Bradbury EC Stories (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2022) [coll: graph: introduction by Greg Bear: commentary by Ted White: hb/]
nonfiction (selected)
- No Man Is an Island (Beverly Hills, California: The National Women's Committee of Brandeis University, Los Angeles Area Chapter, 1952) [nonfiction: chap: text of a talk: pb/nonpictorial]
- The Essence of Creative Writing (San Antonio, Texas: San Antonio Public Library, 1962) [nonfiction: coll: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
- Teacher's Guide to Science Fiction (New York: Bantam Books, 1968) with Lewy Olfson [nonfiction: chap: pb/]
- Zen and the Art of Writing; And, The Joy of Writing (Santa Barbara, California: Capra Press, 1973) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Garcia & James]
- Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius in You (New York: Bantam, 1992) [nonfiction: coll: exp vt of the above: pb/]
- Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity, Expanded (Santa Barbara, California: Joshua Odell Editions/Capra Press, 1994) [nonfiction: coll: exp vt of the above: further: hb/]
- The God in Science Fiction (Northridge, California: Santa Susana Press, 1977) [nonfiction: pb/]
- Beyond 1984: A Remembrance of Things Future (New York: Targ Editions, 1979) [nonfiction: chap: pb/Tony Hauser]
- Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Futures (Santa Barbara, California: Capra Press, 1992) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Barbara de Wilde]
- A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis, and Ministers: Being a Compilation of Poems, Verse, Burial Orations, Essays, Story Fragments, Notions, Fancies and Concepts Having to do with the Cosmos, the Universe, Visitations, Annunciations, First and Last Suppers, Early Sabbaths, Communions, Bar Mitzvahs, Father and Son Banquets that Stretch from Here to Infinity to Try Parson, Preacher, Priest and Rabbinical Souls (Forest Hills, Maryland: Cemetery Dance, 2001) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Phil Parks]
- Conversations with Ray Bradbury (Jackson, Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 2004) [nonfiction: coll: interviews: hb/photographic]
- Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars (New York: William Morrow, 2005) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Ervin Serrano]
- Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (New York: Melville House, 2014) [nonfiction: coll: in the publisher's Last Interview series: pb/]
works as editor
- Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow (New York: Bantam Books, 1952) [anth: pb/]
- The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories (New York: Bantam Books, 1956) [anth: pb/D Schuanth]
- Futuria Fantasia (Pasadena, California: Graham Publishing, 2007) [anth: reprints early fanzine articles: hb/Hannes Bok]
about the author
- Sam Moskowitz. "Ray Bradbury" in Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co, 1966) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
- William F Nolan. The Ray Bradbury Companion: A Life and Career History, Photolog, and Comprehensive Checklist of Writings, with Facsimiles of Ray Bradbury's Unpublished and Uncollected Work in All Media (Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co/Bruccoli Clark, 1975) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Donn Albright. Bradbury Bits & Pieces: The Ray Bradbury Bibliography: 1974-1988 (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo Press, 1990) [nonfiction: supplement to the above: pb/]
- George Edgar Slusser. The Bradbury Chronicles (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo Press, 1977) [nonfiction: chap: hb/nonpictorial]
- James Tucker and Erin McKee, editors. Touchstone: Celebrating the Lives of Fritz Leiber and Ray Bradbury (Salt Lake City, Utah: Mysterious Stranger Press, 1978) [nonfiction/fiction: anth: chap: pb/]
- Martin H Greenberg and J D Olander, editors. Ray Bradbury (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co, 1980) [nonfiction: anth: Writers of the Twenty-First Century: hb/]
- William F Touponce. Ray Bradbury and the Poetics of Reverie: Fantasy, Science Fiction and the Reader (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1984) [nonfiction: hb/]
- William F Touponce. Ray Bradbury and the Poetics of Reverie: Gaston Bachelard, Wolfgang Iser, & the Reader's Response to Fantastic Literature (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo Press, 1998) [nonfiction: exp vt of the above: pb/nonpictorial]
- Martin H Greenberg and William F Nolan, editors. The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury (New York: New American Library/Roc, 1991) [anth: hb/Tom Canty]
- Robin Anne Reid. Ray Bradbury: A Critical Companion (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000) [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
- Harold Bloom, editor. Ray Bradbury (New York: Chelsea House, 2001) [nonfiction: anth: hb/Robert Gerson]
- Jerry Weist. Bradbury: An Illustrated Life: A Journey to Far Metaphor (New York: William Morrow, 2002) [nonfiction: graph: illus/various artists and still: hb/Joseph Mugnaini]
- William F Touponce and Jonathan R Eller. Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2004) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]
- Sam Weller. The Bradbury Chronicles (New York: William Morrow, 2005) [nonfiction: hb/Ralph Nelson]
- Jonathan R Eller. Becoming Ray Bradbury (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2011) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]
- Jonathan R Eller. Ray Bradbury Unbound (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2014) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]
- David Seed. Ray Bradbury (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2015) [nonfiction: in the publisher's Modern Masters of Science Fiction series: pb/Percolator and California Institute of Technology: hb/nonpictorial]
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