Fahrenheit 451

1953 Bradbury, Ray[mond Douglas] (1920-2012). Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine. Serialized in Playboy 1.4 - 6 (March - May 1953): 6-9, 18, 24-25, 28, 35, 41-42, 44, 46-48, 50; 22-23, 28-329, 32-33, 36, 38, 43-44, 49; 19-20, 24, 32, 35-38,43-46, 48-50. A special 200 copy limited edition was bound in Johns-Manville Quintera (asbestos). New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Rpt. without the asbestos binding New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967, with an “Introduction” by Bradbury (9-15); illus. Joseph Mugnaini. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1982. 40th Anniversary Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. [50^th anniversary ed.] New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003 includes Bradbury’s introduction to the 1967 edition (23-30), “Burning Bright,” his Foreword to the 1993 edition (11-21), and “A New Introduction” (5-9). Collector’s Edition illus. Joseph Mugnaini with an “Introduction” by Eric S. Rabkin (3-8). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1991. The [60^th Anniversary Edition]. with the subtitle Fahrenheit 451--The temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013 has an ”Introduction” by Neil Gaiman (xi-xvi). Critical ed. in Novels & Story Cycles. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller (New York: Library of America, 2021), 231-361, with a Chronology of Bradbury’s life (843-61); a notes on the text (866-68); and textual notes (876-79), Bradbury’s “Day After Tomorrow: Why Science Fiction” (811-817), rpt. from The Nation 176 (May 2, 1953): 364-367; rpt. in The Nation, 150^th anniversary edition (April 6, 2015): 101; and his “No Man Is an Island” (818-824), rpt. from his No Man Is an Island. Los Angeles, CA: National Women’s Commission of Brandeis University, 1952. An early version was published as “The Fireman.” Galaxy Science Fiction (New York) 1.5 (February 1951): 4-61; rpt. in Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006), 415-84; and in his A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2010), 203-71. Some other stories in this volume, many of which were originally or previously published in his Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006, are related, some quite loosely, to Fahrenheit 451. See Tim Hamilton, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. The Authorized Adaptation. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009 for a graphic novel version. A 1966 film was directed by François Truffaut (1932-84) with a screenplay by Jean-Louis Ricard (1927-2012) and Truffaut. It was adapted by Ramin Bahrani (b. 1975) with input by Amir Naderi (b.1946) and broadcast on HBO May 19, 2018. See Bahrani’s “Confessions of a Book Burner.” The New York Times Book Review (May 13, 2018): 19. It was adapted as a musical by Georgia Bogardus Holof (Lyrics); David Mettee (Music); and Eric Rausch (Director) and was first performed June 26, 1989, in New York. A version adapted by Bradbury is Fahrenheit 451 [Cover has Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451]. Woodstock, IL: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1986. According to Ralph Willingham, Science Fiction and the Theatre (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 177 Bradbury adapted it for the theatre for Charles Laughton, but the adaptation was never staged or published. DLC, HRC, PSt

Authoritarian, anti-intellectual dystopia. Fahrenheit 451 is the burning point of paper. See 2007 Bradbury, “The Library” and 2010 Bradbury, “Long After Midnight” for related stories.