{"id":6197,"date":"2018-03-07T14:43:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T22:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=6197"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:43:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:43:46","slug":"ray-bradbury-core-bibliography-and-themes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2018\/03\/07\/ray-bradbury-core-bibliography-and-themes\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury: Core Bibliography and Themes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a chronological list of principal Ray Bradbury titles I&#8217;ll be referring to in coming posts. For an exhaustive bibliography, see the Science Fiction Encyclopedia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/bradbury_ray\">entry for Bradbury<\/a>; but as thorough as the listings are in that reference, in cases like Bradbury there are so many small press items and alternately-titled versions that the basic set of books anyone might want to read (as opposed to collect) is obscured. Thus this compact version of a basic bookshelf of RB titles:<\/p>\n<p>1947\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dark Carnival (DC)<br \/>\n1950\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Martian Chronicles (TMC)<br \/>\n1951\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Illustrated Man (TIM)<br \/>\n1953\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Golden Apples of the Sun (GAS)<br \/>\n1953\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fahrenheit 451 (F451)<br \/>\n1955\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The October Country (TOC)<br \/>\n1957\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dandelion Wine (DW)<br \/>\n1959\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A Medicine for Melancholy (MFM)<br \/>\n1962\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Something Wicked This Way Comes (SWTWC)<br \/>\n1962\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 R Is for Rocket (R)<br \/>\n1964\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Machineries of Joy (MOJ)<br \/>\n1965\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Vintage Bradbury (V)<br \/>\n1966\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 S Is for Space (S)<br \/>\n1969\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I Sing the Body Electric (ISBE)<br \/>\n1976\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Long After Midnight (LAM)<br \/>\n1980\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Stories of Ray Bradbury (SRB)<br \/>\n1983\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dinosaur Tales (DT)<br \/>\n1985\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Death Is a Lonely Business (DLB)<br \/>\n1988\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Toynbee Convector (TTC)<br \/>\n1990\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A Graveyard for Lunatics (GFL)<br \/>\n1992\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Green Shadows, White Whale (GSWW)<br \/>\n1996\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Quicker Than the Eye (QE)<br \/>\n1998\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Driving Blind (DB)<br \/>\n2001\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From the Dust Returned (FDR)<br \/>\n2002\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One More for the Road (OMR)<br \/>\n2003\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (B100)<br \/>\n2003\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s All Kill Constance (LKC)<br \/>\n2004\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Cat\u2019s Pajamas (CP)<br \/>\n2007\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band is Playing &amp; Leviathan &#8217;99 (NF)<br \/>\n2006\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Farewell Summer (FS)<br \/>\n2009\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ll Always Have Paris (WAHP)<br \/>\n2010\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A Pleasure to Burn (PTB)<\/p>\n<p>Bradbury died in 2012. (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ray_Bradbury\">Wikipedia<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how to break these down into manageable groups:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1947: Earliest collection DC, only 3000 copies and hard to find; RB\u2019s early, macabre stories<\/li>\n<li>1950-1957: The three essential RB books: TMC, F451, DW<\/li>\n<li>1955: TOC, sort of a revised version of DC of mostly early, macabre stories<\/li>\n<li>1951-1964: The other four early collections: TIM, GAS, MFM, MOJ<\/li>\n<li>1962: His one substantial fantasy novel: SWTWC<\/li>\n<li>1962-1966: Three collections mostly of stories from earlier books: R, V, S; plus the later DT (1983)<\/li>\n<li>1969-1988: Three middle period collections, mixes of current and older work: ISBE, LAM, TTC<\/li>\n<li>1992, 2001: Fixups of mostly much earlier material: GSWW, FDR<\/li>\n<li>1985-2003: Three Hollywood detective novels: DLB, GFL, LKC<\/li>\n<li>1980, 2003: Two huge compilations of 100 stories each, with no overlap: SRB; B100<\/li>\n<li>1996-2009: Six final collections with a few current stories and many \u2018trunk\u2019 stories: QE, DB, OMR, CP, NF, WAHP<\/li>\n<li>2006: Much-belated sequel to DW: FS<\/li>\n<li>2010: Collection of F451 stories: PTB<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Furthermore, the vast majority of RB stories within all his collections fall into these thematic groups:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The early macabre stories, written in the mid-1940s<\/li>\n<li>A small number of \u201cPlanet Stories\u201d stories, inspired by the pulp magazines of the \u201840s<\/li>\n<li>Mars stories, including those included in MC written in the late \u201840s, and quite a few written later<\/li>\n<li>Green Town stories, including those in DW written in the early \u201850s, and quite a few written later<\/li>\n<li>The suburban\/urban stories, including \u201cThe Pedestrian\u201d and F451<\/li>\n<li>Mexico stories, inspired by RB\u2019s vacations there<\/li>\n<li>Ireland stories, inspired by RB\u2019s six month stay there in 1953 while writing the screenplay for \u201cMoby Dick\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A few Hollywood stories, based on RB\u2019s involvement with film-making<\/li>\n<li>A bunch of what I\u2019ll call \u201chero-worship\u201d or &#8220;author-worship&#8221; stories, about Picasso, Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Dickens, and others, in a couple of which RB implies a status among them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Moreover \u2013 there are overlaps! There is a Green Town story in MC; there are F451 stories in MC; and there\u2019s a F451 prequel story set in Green Town.<\/p>\n<p>There are also, of course, numerous singular stories that don\u2019t fit into any of these groups \u2013 e.g. \u201cA Sound of Thunder,\u201d &#8220;Kaleidoscope,&#8221; &#8220;Zero Hour&#8221; (this one perhaps part of a group of evil children stories), &#8220;Hail and Farewell,&#8221; &#8220;And the Sailor, Home from the Sea.&#8221; And these, upon reflection, are among his best, most memorable works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a chronological list of principal Ray Bradbury titles I&#8217;ll be referring to in coming posts. For an exhaustive bibliography, see the Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry for Bradbury; but as thorough as the listings are in that reference, in cases &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2018\/03\/07\/ray-bradbury-core-bibliography-and-themes\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-notes","category-ray-bradbury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6197"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6386,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197\/revisions\/6386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}