"AT THE HEAD OF A TRADITION": SIGNED/LIMITED FIRST EXPANDED EDITION OF DARK CARNIVAL, RAY BRADBURY'S FIRST BOOK, ONE OF ONLY 52 COPIES SIGNED BY RAY BRADBURY AND CLIVE BARKER
BRADBURY, Ray. Dark Carnival. (Springfield, Pennsylvania): Gauntlet, 2001. Octavo, original navy morocco, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket, original CD, original chapbook, original full morocco drawer box.
Signed/limited first expanded edition of Bradbury's important first book, with four stories not present in the first edition, letter FF of only 52 copies signed by Ray Bradbury and Clive Barker and also with CD of Bradbury interviews and a chapbook of Bradbury's "Time Intervening," all in publisher's beautiful full morocco drawer box.
The legendary Bradbury was "as influenced by George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare as he was by Jules Verne… Bradbury's poetically drawn and atmospheric fictions—horror, fantasy, shadowy American gothics—explored life's secret corners" (Los Angeles Times). The 27 stories collected in Dark Carnival mark Bradbury's departure from publishing in pulp magazines. Their "stylistic deftness… stands at the head of a tradition in modern horror fiction" (Barron 4-24). "Evocative, poetic and suffused with youthful wonder, Bradbury's tales broke with pulp conventions in their style and approach to the fantastic… Collected in his first book Dark Carnival… they mesh to form a small-town landscape in which the magic possibilities of ordinary life and the banality of the fantastic are indistinguishable from one another" (Clute & Grant, 132). Because only 3112 copies were printed, "Dark Carnival was never widely available," and in 1955 Arkham House published The October Country, which is "substantially a reprint of Dark Carnival" (Horror 100 Best 55). This expanded edition largely contains the original text from Dark Carnival, which was substantially rewritten and revised for The October Country. Only essential spelling errors were corrected for this edition. However, four additional stories have been added, providing a more comprehensive view of Bradbury's work during the immediate post-war period. Here, each story is prefaced by an illustration of the magazine that originally published it. This edition also contains a substantial appendix, with 53 pages of letter facsimiles and typescripts related to Dark Carnival, all first appearing here. Also, this edition is expanded by with history of Dark Carnival by Jon Eller, an introduction by Bradbury, and an afterword by Clive Barker. A CD of interviews with Bradbury and a chapbook of "Time Intervening" (issued as a promotional item in an edition of 750 copies) have been included. The first edition was published by Arkham Press in 1947. See Currey, 55.
Fine condition.