1920 – birth of Ray Bradbury, American science fiction writer and screenwriter. Ray Douglas Bradbury (22 August 1920 – 5 June 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. Bradbury is best known for his novel
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections
The Martian Chronicles (1950),
The Illustrated Man (1951), and
The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel
Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir
Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including
Moby Dick and
It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury first published
The Fireman, a short story about 25,000 words long, in
Galaxy Science Fiction in February 1951. Bradbury was asked to extend it by 25,000 words so that it would be published as a novel. Bradbury got the title after the Los Angeles fire chief told him that book paper burns at 451 °F. In UCLA's Powell Library, in a study room with typewriters for rent for ten cents per half-hour, Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book burning future,
Fahrenheit 451, which was about 50,000 words long, costing him $9.80 in typewriter rental fees.
Fahrenheit 451 was also published in serial form in the March, April and May 1954 issues of
Playboy Magazine.
Fahrenheit 451 remains a staple in discussions about censorship and dystopian futures. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as
They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001). The
New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream."
