“THE WRITER MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING MODERN SCIENCE FICTION INTO THE LITERARY MAINSTREAM”: SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, INSCRIBED BY RAY BRADBURY IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION

BRADBURY, Ray. The Illustrated Man. Garden City: Doubleday, 1951. Octavo, original beige cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of this noted collection of 18 science fiction stories, inscribed in the year of publication: “For Mr. Duncan—with my best personal regards and luck—it was nice meeting you.—from Ray Bradbury, Feb, 1951.”

American science fiction author Bradbury is best known for the novels Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the intertwined stories of The Martian Chronicles. Bradbury was also a prolific short story writer; his “vintage years are normally thought to be 1946-55; his other short story collections of that period are certainly superior to those he produced later. They begin with The Illustrated Man, 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 as The Illustrated Man by Jack Smight in 1968” (Clute & Nicolls, 152). “The Illustrated Man consists of 18 short stories presented within a framing narrative, a story split between the book’s epilogue and prologue. A short story, ‘The Illustrated Man,’ was published in Esquire in 1950, but that story differs greatly from The Illustrated Man’s framing narrative. Sixteen of the 18 stories were published in various periodicals between 1947 and 1950, but two of the 18 make their first appearance in in print in the collection… This book is widely considered one of Bradbury’s strongest works… Bradbury’s decision to collect previously published stories and revise and arrange them have resulted in ‘novels’ such as The Martin Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Green Shadows, White Whale” (Reid, 37). The two new stories to appear in this collection are “No Particular Night or Morning” and “The Highway” (Eller & Touponce, 360). Bradbury’s “imaginative and lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America… By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream. His name would appear near the top of any list of major science fiction writers of the 20th century… His books are still being taught in schools, where many a reader has been introduced to them half a century after they first appeared… Though none of his works won a Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Bradbury received a Pulitzer citation in 2007 ‘for his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy” (New York Times obituary). With “First Edition” on the copyright page. Currey, 45.

Book fine; lightest wear to extremities of bright dust jacket. A nearly fine copy of this scarce title, most rare inscribed.