The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

RAY BRADBURY, one of Americas most beloved and inspired writers, has passed at the age of 91. Mr. B was one of my earliest mentors in writing (early 1970’s) a good family friend and confidant. Regardless of ones religious affiliation, philosophical thoughts, or even human prejudices, the works of Ray Bradbury have influenced millions of readers and writers for well over half a century.

Bradbury was related to the American Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding. He was also descended from Mary Bradbury, who was tried at Salem witch trials in 1692.
Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth who was greatly influenced by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Bradbury was especially impressed with Poe's ability to draw readers into his works. In his youth, he spent much time in the Carnegie library in Waukegan, Illinois, reading such authors as H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and his favorite author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote novels such as Tarzan of the Apes and The Warlord of Mars.
He attributed two incidents to his lifelong habit of writing every day. The first of these, occurring when he was three years old, was his mother's taking him to see Lon Chaney's performance in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The second incident occurred in 1932, when a carnival entertainer, one Mr. Electrico, touched the young man on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" Bradbury remarked, "I felt that something strange and wonderful had happened to me because of my encounter with Mr. Electrico...he gave me a future...I began to write, full-time. I have written every single day of my life since that day 69 years ago." It was at that age that Bradbury first started to do magic, which was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.
Bradbury was a close friend of Charles Addams, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that would resemble Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural Illinois. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming," published in the 1946 Halloween issue of Mademoiselle, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways. In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative, From the Dust Returned, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original "Homecoming" illustration.
Another close friend was animator Ray Harryhausen. During a BAFTA 2010 awards tribute in honor of Ray Harryhausen's 90th birthday, Bradbury spoke of his first meeting Harryhausen at Forrest J Ackerman's house when they were both 18 years old. Their shared love for science fiction, King Kong, and the King Vidor-directed film The Fountainhead, written by Ayn Rand, was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. These early influences inspired the pair to believe in themselves and affirm their career choices. Since their first meeting, they kept in touch at least once a month, spanning over 70 years of friendship.

Bradbury died in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, after a "lengthy illness", coincidentally during a rare transit of Venus.


Ray Bradbury works:


Novels:
(1950) The Martian Chronicles
(1953) Fahrenheit 451
(1957) Dandelion Wine
(1962) Something Wicked This Way Comes
(1972) The Halloween Tree
(1985) Death Is a Lonely Business
(1990) A Graveyard for Lunatics
(1992) Green Shadows, White Whale
(2001) From the Dust Returned
(2003) Let's All Kill Constance
(2006) Farewell Summer


Short story collections:

In addition to these collections, many of the stories have been published in multi-author anthologies. Almost 50 additional Bradbury stories have never been collected anywhere after their initial publication in periodicals.
(1947) Dark Carnival
(1951) The Illustrated Man
(1953) The Golden Apples of the Sun
(1955) The October Country
(1959) A Medicine for Melancholy
(1962) R is for Rocket
(1962) The Small Assassin
(1964) The Machineries of Joy
(1965) The Vintage Bradbury
(1966) S is for Space
(1966) Twice 22
(1969) I Sing The Body Electric
(1976) Long After Midnight
(1980) The Stories of Ray Bradbury
(1984) A Memory of Murder
(1988) The Toynbee Convector
(1996) Quicker Than The Eye
(1997) Driving Blind
(2002) One More for the Road
(2003) Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales
(2004) The Cat's Pajamas: Stories
(2005) A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories

Plays:
(1948) The Meadow
(1963) The Anthem Sprinters and Other Antics
(1966) The Day It Rained Forever
(1966) The Pedestrian
(1972) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays
(1975) Pillar of Fire and Other Plays
(1986) Fahrenheit 451
(1986) The Martian Chronicles
(1988) Dandelion Wine
(1988) Falling Upward
(1988) Bradbury on Stage: A Chrestomathy of His Plays

Screenplays and teleplays:
This list does not include adaptations by others of Bradbury's published stories.
(1953) It Came from Outer Space (original story)
(1956) Moby Dick

Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre
(1956) The Bullet Trick / The Marked Bullet

Alfred Hitchcock Presents
(1956) Shopping for Death
(1958) Design for Loving
(1959) Special Delivery
(1962) The Faith of Aaron Menefee (from the story by Stanley Ellin)

Steve Canyon
(1959) The Gift

Trouble Shooters
(1959) The Tunnel to Yesterday
(1961) King of Kings (narration, uncredited)

The Twilight Zone
(1962) I Sing the Body Electric

Alcoa Premiere
(1962) The Jail
(1962) Icarus Montgolfier Wright
(1963) Dial Double Zero (The Story of a Writer)

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
(1964) The Life Work of Juan Diaz
(1969) The Picasso Summer

The Curiosity Shop
(1971) The Groon
(1979) Gnomes
(1982) The Electric Grandmother
(1983) Something Wicked This Way Comes
(1983) Quest
(1985-1992) The Ray Bradbury Theater

The Twilight Zone
(1986) The Elevator
(1992) Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
(1993) The Halloween Tree
(1998) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
(2003) It Came from Outer Space

Radio
This list does not include adaptations by others of Bradbury's published stories.
World Security Workshop
(1947) The Meadow

Suspense
(1947) Riabouchinska (story)
(1948) Summer Night (story)
(1948) The Screaming Woman (story)
(1968) Leviathan '99
Poetry
(1975) When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
(1977) Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns
(1980) The Ghosts of Forever
(1981) The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope
(2002) They Have Not Seen the Stars: The Collected Poetry of Ray Bradbury

Children:
(1955) Switch on the Night
(1997) With Cat for Comforter
(1997) Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas
Fable:
(1998) Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines
Anthologies:
(1952) Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow
(1956) The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories
Non-fiction:
(1990) Zen in the Art of Writing
(1991) Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Futures
(2004) Conversations With Ray Bradbury
(2005) Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars






I have seen a medicine
That's able to breathe life into a stone,
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
With spritely fire and motion, whose simple touch
Is powerful to araise King Pippen, nay,
To give great Charlemain a pen in 's hand
And write to her a love-line.


William Shakespeare



THE LAKE - Ray Bradbury Theater