Exhibit Notes: Ray Bradbury

Lilly call number: PS3503.R18

Items in the exhibit:

• The Halloween Tree
• Fahrenheit 451
• Something Wicked This Way Comes
• I Sing the Body Electric
• The Illustrated Man
• The Martian Chronicles
• A letter and a postcard to Anthony Boucher

Ray Bradbury was a first, obvious choice for my exhibit.  As I sci-fi writer, he is popular and well-known outside of the general science fiction fandom.  That's a pretty impressive feat.  Not surprisingly because of this popularity, the Lilly has a lot of his books.  The difficulty for him was in deciding which books I wanted to put in the exhibit.  There were so many to choose from!  And, two of the ones I chose are not strictly science fiction.  Both The Halloween Tree and Something Wicked This Way Comes are better described as fantasy.  I ended up using them because they demonstrate the breadth of Bradbury's writing style and ability.

"It was a pleasure to burn."

In an earlier post, I mentioned that images are more interesting in an exhibit that words.  For my books, this tended to mean that I needed to use the covers, since not that many novels are illustrated.  But I think visual diversity adds as much interest to an exhibit as images do, and I wanted to open up some books for Bradbury.  Much to my pleased surprise, the first edition of Fahrenheit 451 features an awesome illustration opposite the first page, creating a great opening.  See if you can spot the woman trying to escape from the burning house.

I was encouraged to try and mix books and manuscript materials in my collection, but after seeing the things that these men wrote, I would have done it anyway.  The postcard to Boucher that I've included in the exhibit discusses some publicity plans for Bradbury visiting Berkeley.  Boucher has apparently asked about his interest in a "autograph party" (book signing) and Bradbury finds it surprising that anyone would care about him that much.  The letter I've included is a response to Boucher's criticism of Fahrenheit 451.  He and his fellow editor at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction were less than thrilled with the book.  Bradbury's response to the criticism is humble and gracious.  This is why reading manuscript materials is such a treat.  Seeing what these people were like outside the public eye is quite simply fascinating.  It's also rewarding to see when people on admires prove to be genuinely nice people.