Ray Bradbury Biography
American Science Fiction Writer, Famous for Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury is one of the founders of modern science fiction. He is a short story writer, novelist, and essayist. He is famous for Fahrenheit 451 as well as The Martian Chronicles. His primary concern is how human values and ethics will survive as the world evolves into a more impersonal place due to technological advances.
Early Life of Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. His father was a telephone lineman. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1934 and after graduating from secondary school, young Bradbury got a job selling newspapers on street corners.
He began to write short stories and got into setting up his own magazine, but it was only when he was 21 years old that he made money from his writing. His first paid publication was a story called “Pendulum,” published in the magazine Super Science Stories. That same year, he gave up his newspaper job and became a full-time writer.
Bradbury the Science Fiction Novelist
In 1950, the publication of The Martian Chronicles made Bradbury an important science fiction writer. In his stories Bradbury imagines what it would be like if people from earth tried to invade and settle on planet Mars. He also imagines the effects of a huge nuclear war.
As well as short stories, Bradbury had published several novels. The most famous is Fahrenheit 451, which describes a future society in which books are forbidden. Another novel, Dandelion Wine, had a crater on the Moon named after it.
Bradbury’s Writing Theme
Bradbury's stories are not really based on science itself. Instead, he paints a picture of a future that expresses the hopes and fears of many Americans, which is, the hope for a return to the simple life of a small town, like the one he grew up in, and the fear of state control and modern technology.
Last Words on Bradbury
Bradbury has special place among his fellow science fiction writers. He is admired not only for his visionary ideas but for his literary artistry and humanity of his work. His earlier books were much read by prominent writers like Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, and philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Although he is much at home with science fiction, Bradbury is a prolific writer who writes in other genres including short stories, poems, plays and detective stories. His famous Fahrenheit 451, a screenplay for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, has been adapted as an opera.
"Man, in his immense tidal motion, is about to flow out toward far new worlds; but man must conquer the seed of his own destruction.” ~ Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
Books by Ray Bradbury
- Dark Carnival, 1947
- The Martian Chronicles, 1950
- The Illustrated Man, 1951
- The Golden Apples of the Sun, 1953
- Fahrenheit 451, 1953
- The October Country, 1955
- Dandelion Wine, 1957
- Something Wicked This Way Comes, 1962
- R is for Rocket, 1962
- The Machineries of Joy, 1964
- S is for Space, 1966
- I sing the Body Electric!, 1969
- The Toynbee Convector, 1988
- Green Shadows, White Whale, 1992
- Quicker Than The Eye, 1996
Sources:
Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994.
McGovern, Una, Ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2002.
Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997.
Ray Bradbury, U.S. Novelist, Short Story Writer
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