But you know all this.
What you may know less well is that Bradbury began his life in science fiction as a fan, actively immersed in the nascent community of fans in the late 1930s who would shape the genre for the next several decades. Bradbury fell in with Forrest J Ackerman and the Los Angeles Science Fiction League (LASFL) in October 1937 at the age of 17. Just four months later, his first published science fiction story appeared in the January 1938 issue of the club’s organ, Imagination!
THE EARLIEST BRADBURY fills some important some gaps in that history. Here, readers will have a unique opportunity to experience some of Bradbury’s earliest steps on his road to mastery. A treasure trove of Bradbury's articles and stories from 1937 - 1941 are reproduced in full facsimile form, as they were originally published in amateur fanzines. These are not the short stories that appeared in anthologies and short story collections over the decades. Most of these artifacts have never been available outside the musty archives of fanatical collectors of early fan history. Letters, brief snippets of story ideas and proposals and other goodies make up this lavish coffee table book.
You can visit the publishers' website and order a copy today. The hardcover edition is limited to a printing of 100. Also, you can flip through the pages of the book virtually to look inside (a really cool feature).
“Ray Bradbury was a time traveler, his fantastic imagination replenished by memories of a childhood immersed in wonder. THE EARLIEST BRADBURY is itself a time machine, transporting us to the fulcrum point of Bradbury’s life when the ardent fan became a published writer. Through an excavation of rare publications, evocative photos and revealing illustrations, the book recreates a genuinely magical period of Bradbury’s life that continued to inform his later career. This is an essential work to understand his artistic development, and that of American fantasy in general.”
— Michael Saler, Professor of History, University of California, Davis
Author of As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality
“The Earliest Bradbury represents the first comprehensive effort to bring together the full visual spectrum of Ray Bradbury’s interactions with the many fanzine editors who constituted the First Fandom universe across America in the late 1930s and early 1940s. These archival images from original publications breathe life into the elusive record of the young Ray Bradbury satirizing, imitating, and experimenting with the craft of writing on the eve of beginning his seven-decade professional career.”
— Jonathan Eller, Chancellor’s Professor and director of
The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University
