Biography of Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury Biography Ray Bradbury Story

Ray (Raymond) Douglas Bradbury (Eng. Ray Douglas Bradbury), b. August 22, 1920, Waukegan, Illinois, USA - an outstanding American science fiction writer.

Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. The middle name - Douglas, he received in honor of the famous actor of that time, Douglas Fairbanks. Father - Leonard Spaulding Bradbury (a descendant of the British pioneers). Mother - Marie Esther Moberg, Swedish by birth.

Dead butterfly - and such consequences?
(A Sound of Thunder)

Bradbury Ray

In 1934, the Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles, where Ray lives to this day. The writer’s childhood and youth passed during the Great Depression, he had no funds for a university education, however, having decided to become a writer at almost 12 years old, Ray followed him with enviable persistence, never thinking about another profession. As a young man, he sold newspapers, then lived off his wife for several years, until his first major work, The Martian Chronicles, was finally published in 1950. Then (in the first issues of Playboy magazine) - the story "451 degrees Fahrenheit". Further, his fame has grown to worldwide.

Ray Bradbury is often referred to as the master of science fiction, one of the best science fiction writers, and the founder of many of the genre's traditions. In fact, Bradbury is not a science fiction writer, since his work should be classified as “big”, non-genre literature, and he has only a small proportion of truly fantastic works. However, Bradbury is the recipient of several awards in the field of fiction (Nebula - 1988, Hugo - 1954), in addition to many general literary awards.

Most of Bradbury's works are short stories of a non-entertaining nature, containing short sketches, reduced to dramatic, psychological moments, built mainly on dialogues, monologues, reflections of characters, rather than on action. Despite the obvious talent for inventing various plots, often entertaining and original, the writer often confines himself to plotless sketches, very metaphorical, full of hidden meanings or not carrying a certain semantic load at all. And even in well-tailored works, Bradbury can easily break off the narrative, avoid details, leaving the action at a moment of acute passions. Also, in almost none of the works of the writer can be convicted of moralizing and imposing his point of view: in 99% of the works, the author remains “behind the scenes”. The situation can develop arbitrarily biased, but Bradbury will never lead the reader to a conclusion. As if he sees his task in exciting the reader, exacerbating the situation and leaving, leaving him to think over the book.

And if Bradbury departed from his other creative principles, then his “language”, that is, the ways of presenting images, thoughts, almost never changed. The characteristic features of his language are "watercolor", a minimum of details, descriptions, details, actions. There is even not so much fantasticness (lack of realism), but neglect of the value of likelihood. This feature also applies to plots (fantasticity easily coexists with fabulousness, detective story with melodrama, sweeping away the boundaries of genres), and language: Bradbury neglects descriptions of places of action, the appearance of heroes, names, dates, numbers. Naturally, in his works one cannot find technical details and a complete absence of fiction in the technical field.

Accordingly, without making the plot base absolute, Bradbury easily changes the styles and genres of his works. In the stories of the same year of writing, one can easily find science fiction, melodrama, detective story, fantasy, historical sketches, poetry, and so on.

As far as can be judged from essays and interviews, Bradbury preaches a literature of feelings, not thoughts. Emotions, not actions. States, not events.

Ray Bradbury is a legendary science fiction writer who managed to turn his childhood dreams and nightmares, poor eyesight (which forced him to refuse military service), and Cold War paranoia into a brilliant literary career that spanned 74 years and included horror, fantasy, humor, plays, short stories, novels and more. We present you a list of the 10 best books by Ray Bradbury that we would recommend everyone to read.

10 best books by Ray Bradbury

1. FAHRENHEIT 451 / FAHRENHEIT 451 (1953)

Inspired by the Cold War and the meteoric rise of television, bradbury, a staunch supporter of libraries, wrote this dark futuristic work in 1953. His future world is filled only with televisions and thoughtless entertainment, people have already stopped thinking and communicating with each other, and such masses no longer need literature, therefore, in this world bradbury firefighters are needed not to put out fires, but to burn books. “This novel is based on real facts, as well as my hatred for those who burn books,” said bradbury in an interview with The Associated Press in 2002.

Fahrenheit 451, he wrote in just nine days at the UCLA library. It was printed on a typewriter rented for 10 cents an hour. So the total amount bradbury spent on his bestseller, amounted to $ 9.80.

2. THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (1950)

In 1950 debut novel Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles brought him worldwide fame. Here he talks about the militant human colonization of a utopian Martian nation. The work is built in the form of a chain of stories, each of which ridiculed the very real problems of humanity at that time - racism, capitalism and the over-struggle for control of the planet. Most likely with The Martian Chronicles, as well as with some other works bradbury, the reader gets acquainted in childhood. Adults can easily see that all the fantastic worlds of the author are just our planet Earth, which is so amazing and mysterious, and which is destroyed not by strange creatures, but by man himself.

3. MAN IN PICTURES / THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (1951)

In this collection of 18 non-fiction stories published in 1951, bradbury tries to look into the very human inside, in order to describe in detail the reasons for certain actions. The escalating struggle between technology and human psychology, along with a major story about a tattooed tramp, the "pictorial man," connects the new collection with previous work. bradbury. The writer took the character "man in pictures" from his previous collection "Dark Carnival". "Man in Pictures" is a collection of the flowering of creative forces bradbury. The ideas raised here will form the basis of the writer's further fantastic philosophy. It cost him many efforts to persuade the publisher not to call the collection science fiction. It is thanks to this Ray Bradbury managed to get rid of the status of a low-grade scribbler.

4 SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1962)

This fantastic horror film tells the story of two boys who ran away from home at night to see the carnival and witnessed the transformation of Kuger (a forty-year-old carnival participant) into a twelve-year-old boy. This is what becomes the beginning of the adventure of the two guys, during which they explore the contradictory nature of good and evil. The title of the novel comes from William Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Pricks the fingers./ As always/ Trouble is coming." This story was originally written as a screenplay for a film directed by Gene Kelly, but he couldn't find funding, so bradbury made a complete novel out of it.

5. DANDELION WINE (1957)

This semi-autobiographical novel is set in 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois. The prototype of this place is the hometown bradbury— Waukegan in the same state. Most of the book describes the routine of a provincial American town and the simple joys of the past, the center of which is the preparation of wine from dandelion petals. It is this wine that becomes the metaphorical bottle into which all the joys of summer are poured. Despite the fact that the book does not contain the supernatural theme familiar to the writer, the magic itself revolves around childhood feelings and experiences that can no longer be repeated in adulthood. Do not try to read this book in one breath: it is worth tasting it in small sips, so that each page can give you its own magic of your childhood.

6. THE SOND OF SUNDER (1952)

This story tells us about a passionate hunter who is tired of the usual safari. Therefore, he goes to the past for a huge amount of money to hunt a dinosaur. But to his misfortune, the rules of hunting are strict, since you can only kill one animal, which would have already died due to natural circumstances. The whole story is based on a theory that was later called the "butterfly effect". The essence of this theory is that small changes in the past can have catastrophic consequences for the future. But, at the time bradbury this term was not yet known, therefore, “And Thunder Rang” was most often attributed to the theory of chaos in its time. In 2005, this story was filmed under the same name.

7. DARK CARNIVAL (1947)

This is the first collection of stories Ray Bradbury. The "Dark Carnival" contains, perhaps, the largest concentration of "gloomy" horror films and fantastic stories from all of Bradbury's work. Which is not strange, because being the works of an unknown writer, it was these stories that brought Bradbury money. Initially, he wanted to call the collection Horror Kindergarten, thus drawing an analogy with children's nightmares. Scary, grotesque and distorted images inhabited these stories. There are maniacs, and vampires, and eccentric people who are afraid of their own skeletons. Ray Bradbury he never returned entirely to this genre, but the images he created at the beginning of his work surfaced more than once in his more famous works.

8. SUMMER, FAREWELL SUMMER (2006)

This is the last novel Ray Bradbury, released during his lifetime, and is partly autobiographical. This is a kind of continuation of "Dandelion Wine", in which the main character, Douglas Spaulding, gradually turns into an adult man. And during this period of growing up, the line separating the youth and the elderly becomes clearly visible. In the words of bradbury the idea of ​​this story came to him back in the 50s, and he planned to release it in the same Dandelion Wine, but the volume was too large for the publisher: “But for this book, rejected by the publishers, the name arose immediately: “Summer, Goodbye". So, all these years, the second part of “Dandelion Wine” has matured to such a state when, from my point of view, it is not a shame to reveal it to the world. I patiently waited for these chapters of the novel to be overgrown with new thoughts and images that give liveliness to the entire text, ”said bradbury.

9 DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS (1985)

The setting and time of this detective novel is Venice, California, 1949. A series of brutal murders, no doubt connected, attracts the attention of an aspiring writer, no doubt copied from the very bradbury. He, along with Detective Elmo Crumley, are trying to figure out what is happening. This is one of the first works in which Bradbury develops his abilities for the detective genre, and also shows his first attempts to tie the plot on himself. The author was inspired to write the novel by a real series of murders that took place in Los Angeles from 1942 to 1950. Bradbury was present at the time, and kept a close eye on the story.

10. THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN (1953)

This is the third collection of short stories. Ray Bradbury. In it, the writer decided to move away from the sci-fi genre and focus on more realistic stories, fairy tales and detective stories. Of course, fantasy is also present here, but it is more reduced to the background. In total, the collection includes 22 wonderful stories, including "Howler", "Pedestrian", "Killer" and other stories. By the way, "Golden Apples of the Sun" is dedicated to the woman who most influenced the writer's creative path - his aunt Neva.

greatest glory bradbury brought his fiction, creative and contemplative at the same time, in which he imagined a future world inhabited by Martians with telepathic abilities, book burners and sea monsters in love. And this futuristic writer categorically protested against the transfer of his books to electronic form. Maybe, Ray Bradbury he was afraid that such a passion for technology was the first step towards his dystopia of the future.

Bradbury ( Bradbury) Ray Douglas (b. 1920), American writer, science fiction classic.

Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. Full name - Raymond Douglas Bradbury (second name in honor of the famous actor Douglas Fairbanks). Father - Leonard Spaulding Bradbury (a descendant of the British pioneers). Mother - Marie Esther Moberg, Swedish by birth. In addition to Ray, the family had a son, Leonard Jr. (b. 1916) and a daughter, Elizabeth (b. 1926).

In the town of Waukegan passed the first 12 summers of Ray's life. In 1934, at the height of the Great Depression, the family moved to Los Angeles. Literature seriously engaged in school. The future science fiction writer was not 12 years old when he asked his parents to buy him a children's typewriter, on which he printed his first compositions. From the age of 9 to 22, he spent all his free time in libraries. By the age of 20, Ray Bradbury firmly decided that he would become a writer. From the age of 18, he began selling newspapers on the street - he sold them every day for four years, until literary work began to bring him a more or less regular income.

Ray graduated from high school in 1938 in Los Angeles. I didn't manage to get into college. In 1940, separate stories were published in magazines, in 1947 Ray Bradbury's first author's collection "Dark Carnival" was published. In 1946, 1948, 1954, his stories were included in an anthology of the best American short stories ("Best American Short Stories"); in 1947, 1948, Bradbury's works were included in the collections of short stories awarded to them. O. Henry ("O. Henry Prize Stories"). In 1950, the science fiction writer became widely known after the release of the collection of related short stories "The Martian Chronicles" ("The Martian Chronicles"), in 1951 the micro-story "Fireman" was published, from which the famous novel "451 ° Fahrenheit" grows in 1953 ". The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 made the thirty-three-year-old Bradbury famous all over the world.

Mastery grew with each new work, and most importantly, Ray Bradbury found his own style, which reflected the writer's passionate experience of each artistically investigated situation. cream on the cake, decoration, "decor" Some people think that style is fantasy In reality, style is truth Even if my truth is to hear dinosaurs scream... If you develop your five senses, then you will be able to influence people. You will be able to convey to them the taste of things, their shape and color, the most incredible sensations! You will be able to invent fantastic stories. The logic of feelings will convince a person that all this is real "Bradbury began to publish the mimeographic magazine Futuria Fantasy, in four issues of which for 1939-1940. tried to convey his emotional anticipations of the future. The germ of the "Martian Chronicles" can be seen in the story "The Piper", published in one of the issues of Ray Bradbury's own (first and only) magazine.

Bradbury soon switched to a literary job, producing up to 52 stories a year. There is a warrior against Hitler's Nazism with its racial hatred, the suppression of personal freedom, the destruction of objectionable books. Ray is not recruited for military service due to myopia. In Los Angeles, where he lives at the time, he meets Mexican youths, and this friendship subsequently gives him material for the story "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" (1958).

Throughout his life, Ray Bradbury remains not even a book lover, but a book lover. He loves books and hates those who are able to destroy them. In libraries, he spent his childhood, youth and youth, he visits bookstores at every opportunity. In 1946, in one of the bookstores in Los Angeles, he met a blond, thin girl who worked there - Margaret Susana Maclure (Maggie) and fell in love with her for life. From the first day of family life and for several years, Margaret worked so that her husband could stay at home and work on books, studied four languages, and became a true connoisseur of literature. Together they lived all their lives (Margaret died on November 24, 2003). The Bradbury family had 4 daughters: Tina, Ramona, Susan and Alexandra.

Ray Bradbury is often referred to as the master of science fiction, one of the best science fiction writers and the founder of many of the genre's traditions. In fact, Bradbury is not a science fiction writer, since his work should be attributed to "big", non-genre literature, and he has only a small proportion of truly fantastic works. However, Bradbury is the recipient of several awards in the field of fiction (Nebula - 1988, Hugo - 1954), in addition to many general literary awards.

The main major works translated into Russian:

• Martian Chronicles, 1950 (The Martian Chronicles)


• Fahrenheit 451, 1953 (Fahrenheit 451)


• Dandelion Wine, 1957 (Dandelion Wine)


• Trouble is coming, 1962 (…Something wicked this way comes)


• All Hallows' Eve 1972 (The Halloween Tree)


• Death is a lonely business, 1985


• Green shadows, white whale, 1992 (Green shadows, white whale)


• Farewell Summer 2006 (Farewell Summer)

Stories, on the other hand, make up the largest part of Bradbury's work. They contain, perhaps, everything for which Bradbury is loved, appreciated and recognized as the master of literature. Without belittling the importance of large, "serious" works, stories and novels, it is worth recognizing that it was in this form of literary creativity that the writer reached the height of his mastery.

According to the writer's own words, during his life he wrote more than 400 stories. Some of them served as the basis for larger works. Others can be combined into cycles according to themes and heroes wandering from one story to another.

Some of his stories:

• Once upon a time there was an old woman, 1944 (There Was an Old Woman)


• There Will Come Soft Rains, 1950 (part of The Martian Chronicles) (There Will Come Soft Rains)


• Howler, 1951 (The Fog Horn)


• And thunder came, 1952 (A Sound of Thunder)


• Hello and Goodbye 1953 (Hail and Farewell)


• The smell of sarsaparilla, 1958 (A Scent of Sarsaparilla)


• Shore at Sunset, 1959 (The Shore Line at Sunset)


• All Summer in a Day, 1959 (All Summer in a Day)


• Outlandish Marvel, 1962 (A Miracle of Rare Device)

A number of Bradbury's works have been filmed.

Judging by American literature of the 20th century, a strange impression is created: for the average American, historical time seems to have begun about two hundred and forty years ago. Everything before the Declaration of Independence is in a dull indistinctness. Only a few events from those eras evoke some kind of response in the memory - the Mayflower, the acquisition of Manhattan from the Indians, the Salem trials ...

The guardian of ancient American traditions, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, considered the second half of the 18th century to be the ideal and original time. Bicentennial houses in his stories are buildings of almost inconceivable antiquity...

For me, who grew up literally on the ruins of Chersonese (and its age exceeds two and a half thousand years), such shallow ideas about antiquity look funny and strange. Antiquity is the Scythian invasions, the wars of Mithridates, the branded Heraclean amphoras... Even the siege of Chersonese by the Kiev pagan Vladimir, which preceded the baptism of Rus', is closer in time to us than to the time of the founding of the first Greek colonies in the Crimea.

American history fits into such a small number of generations that antiquity is strikingly close.

The young Ray Bradbury was a contemporary of Edgar Rice Burroughs. And Edgar Rice Burroughs was the son of a retired American Civil War officer, a contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe.

How amazingly short this chain is - only two or three generations, an incomplete century ...

But Ray Bradbury is our contemporary. He has grown into this time chain, added his link to it, became another living time machine that connects us with the now legendary world of the pioneers of magazine fiction - Hugo Gernsbeck, Abraham Merritt, Doc Smith, John Campbell ...

Are all these historical characters practically our contemporaries? Jack Williamson was born before Edgar Burroughs began writing, published his first story the same year Doc Smith's Space Lark came out in 1928, became popular at the same time as John Campbell, appeared in the same magazines as Heinlein , Asimov and Sturgeon, received the same awards as Philip Dick, Roger Zelazny, Ursula Le Guin and William Gibson ... Now, as these lines are being written, Jack Williamson is alive, writing, teaching ...

One life - between legend and modernity. It seems unthinkable. Impossible.

Bradbury was right: people are living time machines.

It is worth realizing how short the history of genre fiction is - and the scale of the changes that have occurred in culture during the 20th century becomes obvious. What was called fantasy literature in Gernsbeck's time is very different from what is called fantasy literature today. But we habitually put these not much similar literary trends in the same basket, without thinking that in doing so we deprive the term fantasy of any intelligible meaning. The grandiose evolution that the literature of free imagination has undergone during this time seems to be hidden behind one petrified word, from under which giants, one after another, climbed out of the ghetto of mass culture into universally recognized classics.

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. The connection with American antiquity was secured for Ray - his father's English ancestors settled on the new continent as early as 1630. His mother was Swedish by nationality, so on the maternal side, Ray Douglas may well consider himself a descendant of the Vikings (our time machine goes deeper and deeper into the past). With her, the boy always had complete understanding. His father, on the other hand, kept him at some distance. Later, when Ray grows up, their relationship will improve, and then an unusual dedication will appear in the collection The Cure for Melancholy: To my dad, whose love, although so belated, surprised me so joyfully ...

Joyful surprise - perhaps these words can describe the attitude of many of Bradbury's works dedicated to childhood. It seems that he never stopped playing with this world.

But his imagination was also stirred by childhood fears. In an early autobiographical essay, he wrote:

Among my first memories are the following: I go up the stairs at night and see a vile monster waiting for me on the penultimate step. I scream and run as fast as I can to my mother. Then we climb the stairs with her. The monster always hides. Mom never got to see him. At times, I was even offended that she lacked imagination ... For the first ten years of my life, ghosts, skeletons, and other childhood fears constantly lodged in my head.

But not only children's horror stories lodged in this head - from early childhood, Ray had an irresistible craving for magical fiction. He listened with rapture as his mother read him The Wizard of Oz, and with exactly the same enthusiasm he listened to his aunt, who preferred the stories of Edgar Allan Poe to fairy tales. Adults took the boy with them to the cinema, where he watched the Phantom of the Opera and the Lost World. Once he got to the performance of the famous illusionist Blackstone. Magic made an absolutely indelible impression on Ray. He wanted to become a magician.

In 1928 (the year that would become the magical year of Dandelion Wine many years later), the world of eight-year-old Ray turned once and for all - quite by accident, an issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly, a thick quarterly science fiction magazine, fell into his hands. It was a paper treasure filled with magic. On the bright yellow cover, giant, more than two meters tall, red ants were chasing a man. What kid could look at something like that? The cover promised incredible adventures. The cover woke up exactly what became perhaps the main advantage of early magazine fiction - the feeling of the Miracle. Delight before this miracle easily blocked the fear of monsters. More precisely, the monsters themselves became part of the magic that pervaded the world ...

As if the pieces of a complex puzzle clicked into place, and from that moment on, Ray's life went in a strictly predetermined direction. However, until now, he had no idea.

But fate was already accelerating the flywheel of his fate. In 1932, the disasters of the Great Depression tore the Bradbury family from their place. From Illinois they moved to Arizona.

The day before the departure, Ray again fell under the influence of magic. Mr. Electrico, an illusionist from a traveling circus that pitched tents on the shores of Lake Michigan, told the boy that he recognized him as an old friend who died in 1918 in the Ardennes. According to the magician, Ray inherited his soul. It wasn't at a performance, the magician was just talking to him.

Why did he say this? Don't know. Maybe he saw in me a willingness to accept some new fate? How should I know ... But I remember that he told me Live forever - and gave me my future, and at the same time my past - many years of life until the day when his friend died in France ...

Bradbury himself is sure that he began to write precisely thanks to a meeting with Mr. Electrico. Why don't we believe him?

A real treasure awaited Ray in Arizona: one of the local guys collected a whole box of science fiction magazines, and Ray read them all. The stories of Tarzan and the Martian epics of Egar Rice Burroughs so shocked his imagination that he, unable to overcome the thirst for new adventures, began to create them himself.

That summer, his real Wonder Machine was a toy typewriter that had nothing but capital letters.

Two years later, in 1934, fate and the Depression move his family to Los Angeles. By this time, Ray has turned into a bespectacled, overweight, traditional school outcast who is never called by his peers to play baseball. What is left for him? Only reading. And fantastic stories generated by his imagination...

Now, seven decades later (really seven decades? - a damned time machine, it is absolutely impossible to keep track of the years with it!), He remains the same fat man in glasses, with a childishly clean and not childishly sad smile. In 1950 he would write: No one can grow old until he fully realizes how alone he is in this world.

In a few more decades, it will become clear that he himself did not fully realize this.

Then, in the mid-1930s (our time machine travels back in time), he was only beginning to feel loneliness, but was unable to comprehend it. It was not an easy feeling. He, open to miracles, perished in everyday life. Mom understood him, but she could not rejoice at miracles - as before, she was not allowed to see the monsters that sat on the penultimate step of the night stairs.

Perhaps, over time, Ray, too, would have learned to ignore them, abandoned the magazines and became an ordinary hard worker. It went to that, and it would have come to that, if fate did not continue to spin its flywheel - if not for miracles.

Everything was possible in California. He once roller-skated in Hollywood and drove home in the limousine of former movie star and future Hollywood gossip queen Louella Parsons.

Ray has always been there - in the elusive gap between the past and the future, and never lost the ability to take in the look and what was already and what was not.

hasn't come true yet.

In the early days of September 1937, Bradbury accidentally met in a second-hand bookstore with some guy who drew attention to his passion for science fiction magazines and invited ... where? Can't be. He was invited to the next monthly meeting of the local branch of the Sci-Fi League.

Bradbury experienced the same shock that, about the same time, hit the New York sci-fi fan Frederick Paul and hundreds (only hundreds - all over the country) of others: he, a loser, lost in imaginary worlds, found others like him, found like-minded people - and found them in a completely real, material, everyday world! Can't be.

First, there are no miracles.

Secondly, try to repeat it again - after such an undoubted miracle!

On September 5, 1937, Ray Bradbury finally entered the highway, along which his fate rushed forward - without traffic lights and refueling stops.

It was at that meeting that someone handed him the first issue of Imagination, an amateur club magazine (typewritten, rotator-printed, and pierced at the spine with three staples), which contained stories and articles by members of the League. Bradbury suddenly realized that his stories could also be published in such a magazine. He would not have dared to offer them to a real magazine, but in this one - why not? ..

His first fan publication took place four months later - in January 1938, the story Hollerboken's Dilemma appeared in the next issue of Imagination. The story was painstakingly furnished with all the shortcomings of amateur prose, but at least its plot idea was fresh: the hero had accumulated an incredible amount of energy due to being able to stop in time, and this energy would immediately be released if he began to move again.

Time, energy of time, man and time - all this was already in his very first published story!

Three years later, on a strikingly similar idea, Alfred Van Vogt, a professional writer and one of John Campbell's favorites, will build the first of the stories of his weapon cycle. Was there something? .. or? .. Be that as it may, the fantasy world remained incredibly small.

But Bradbury was in this world so far almost nobody. He was a Jester. Joker. A noteworthy wit who joked in magazines, at meetings, on the street, always and for any reason. He spoke vigorously. He sent humoresques and notes to every amateur magazine he could get his hands on. But under all this uncontrollable fun, - his close friend Bruce Yerke wrote after only five years, - there was a deep understanding of human nature, and the notches left by time were already visible ...

At the same time, club life introduced Bradbury to some professional writers from Los Angeles. Henry Kuttner, Arthur Barnes, Lee Brackett, Robert Heinlein came to the meetings of the League. Energetic and insatiably thirsty for communication, a smiling young man at times frightened them with his impulsiveness, and with endless questions about how to become a professional and successful writer, he could simply bring them to white heat.

By that time, he had just finished school and began to look for something to do in adulthood. Theater? Graphic arts? Literature?..

Humoresque soon ceased to suit him and he moved on to more serious forms. But amateur magazines, accustomed to receiving light jokes from Bradbury, took his serious stories not too willingly. Ray knew perfectly well that such publications were always experiencing a shortage of materials, and at first he was simply surprised at refusals, and then, with resentment, he began to suspect almost a conspiracy ...

But a way out of this situation was found - in the summer of 1939, Bradbury released the first issue of his own fanzine Futuria Fantasia. In this magazine, as a rule, he was not denied publications ...

With the preparation of the first issue (in total, Bradbury made four issues) coincided with the first (and last) political eclipse that befell the future classic - he became interested in the ideas of technocracy. In the 1930s, it was a very fashionable fad, a new chimera born in the swamps of general despondency from the marriage of the Depression to technological progress. The technocrats argued that the scientific methods of managing the economy would make it as efficient as possible, and society would have no choice but to immediately prosper. To do this, it was necessary to wait until the inefficient capitalist economy eats itself. Depression is only the beginning, said the ideologues of the technocracy. If all goes as harsh logic predicts, by 1945 America will be in ruins. The people simply will not have any other choice but to hand their fate into the hands of the most advanced engineers, scientists and thinkers who will be able to rise above momentary problems and solve the problem of building an ideal society with united forces.

Bradbury in those days still quite cheerfully accepted proposals for the implementation of all sorts of utopias. But (time machine - click, click, click) - in a few years he will perceive technological progress as one of the many fantastic monsters bred by human short-sightedness. And utopias, especially those brought to life, will become almost the main nightmare for him ...

Because utopias are the same childhood dreams. Having become a reality, they immediately turn out to be unnecessary and die.

But then, in the 1930s, writers and fans of science fiction treated social experiments without any special prejudice - if you could fantasize in the field of science and technology, then why not dream up in terms of social order? Some of the young fans, helping to make the fairy tale come true, even decided to take the next step and become members of the US Communist Party - however, after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and a sharp change in the general line of this party (from total criticism of fascism to declaring Hitler as the main ally), all of them, with rare exceptions, membership cards were handed over. With all their love for science fiction (and, perhaps, precisely because of it), they were still not completely naive young men.

Technocracy, although it offered an approach to social reorganization as scientific as communist theory, was still less of a scarecrow for Americans than the red threat. It wasn't a very scary thing. Some of the youth liked it.

It seems to me, Bradbury wrote then, that technocracy combines all the dreams and hopes of science fiction. This is what we have dreamed of for so many years - and soon our dreams may come true...

Ten years later, rereading these lines, he experienced only horror in front of the ideas he had once extolled.

Bradbury did not play with technocratic utopia for long - in the first issues of Futuria Fantasia, quite a lot of space was devoted to it, but gradually the topic faded away. He was more interested in publishing fantastic stories than social projects. In addition, there were certain achievements here: for example, for the fourth (and, alas, last) issue of the fanzine, Bradbury solicited a story from Robert Heinlein himself - almost incredible luck, even taking into account the fact that Heinlein set the main condition for the publication of the story under the pseudonym Lyle Monroe . Covers for the magazine were drawn by Hannes Bock, another friend of Bradbury's from the League, an amateur artist, then still unknown to anyone.

It was his drawings that Bradbury took with him when, in the summer of 1939, he went to New York for the very first WorldCon in the world - a world congress of science fiction lovers. This congress was called, frankly, for the sake of a red word, only Americans came to it, but nothing like it was held anywhere else in the world at that time. In addition to participating in the convention, Bradbury undertook in New York another important act for history - he went to the editorial office of the monthly Weird Tales and met with the magazine's editor, Fairnsworth Wright. First, he wanted to find out if there were any prospects for publishing his own stories in the journal (however, there were no prospects then). Secondly, he invited Wright to look at the work of Hannes Bock - and here the hit was accurate. Wright liked the style of illustrations, and soon, at the suggestion of Bradbury, Hannes Bock's graphics began to appear regularly in the magazine, and he himself quickly became one of the most popular science fiction artists.

Bradbury himself found in New York something more than an opportunity to publish: he found himself a literary agent. Julius Schwartz was then one of the few activists who took the time to add other people's stories to magazines. (Later, he would find a more prestigious and creative occupation for himself and remain in the history of popular culture as the lead editor of Superman and Batman comics).

Bradbury gave Shv

artsu their manuscripts and returned to Los Angeles - to work.

For lack of other means of subsistence, he worked as a paperboy. The future classic rushed through the streets screaming Latest news! for a good four years, from 1938 to 1942, simultaneously inventing new stories, observing people, noticing vivid details ... If he had the strength for it. Have you ever run through the streets with a heavy stack of newspapers? Try it. Very conducive to creative growth, if you can keep your breath.

Many years later, he wrote about this time: When I was selling newspapers, friends asked me: What are you doing here? I answered: I am becoming a writer. You don't look like a writer, they said. But I feel like a writer! I objected.

Only in 1941 (a year and a half after meeting Bradbury) did Schwartz manage to sell his story for the first time. The mint, written back in 1939 and later rewritten by Bradbury's friend Henry Hasse, brought the co-authors a total of $27.50 (minus the agent's interest). It was the story of a scientist who, during the demonstration of his invention, accidentally ruined two dozen leading luminaries of world science and was punished for this with immortality - and the contemplation of an endless change of eras. The story was frankly weak in literary terms, but, by some strange coincidence, it was again a story about time.

Time did not let him go.

In 1942, Bradbury decided he had had enough of his newspaper work. He chose from his manuscripts everything that could be read without risk to reason, and went to New York to Schwartz, counting on his friendly advice.

Schwartz, who by that time already had significant experience in dealing with magazine editors, helped not only with advice. For several days they lived together at a typewriter - Schwartz criticized what Bradbury wrote, and Bradbury obediently rewrote over and over again, running out into the street once a day to buy milk and a hamburger - he could not afford more, and Schwartz had things to do were not so brilliant that it was possible to feed at his expense.

Maybe the diet helped, maybe the advice of the wise Schwartz, but the story Piper, written by Bradbury during their joint sitting, managed to be attached pretty quickly. It was Bradbury's first published Martian story - decent enough for professional publication, but not good enough to merit inclusion in any of his important collections of authors.

Moving away from typing fever, Bradbury looked at his text from the side and was dissatisfied. He saw how, what and why he did it, he realized that the story had taken on a form more familiar to publishers - but it was clear that at the same time the Piper had lost something. Gone were the strange and unlike Martian cities. Youthful poetic elation has disappeared. Disappeared... magic?

Bradbury sat down at the typewriter and began to write - one story after another, not giving himself the slightest indulgence and issuing text dozens of pages a day. None of these stories were accepted into any science fiction magazine.

But he stubbornly continued to seek his voice, and the monolithic severity of the editors began to crack. A narrator in Thrilling Wonder Stories, another in Weird Tales - sometimes imitating others, sometimes inventing something of their own. He wrote the wind, keeping in mind the style of Hemingway. The crowd grew out of the style of Edgar Poe...

By the middle of 1943, his perseverance brought the first successes. His stories began to appear regularly in Weird Tales, less often in other publications of lesser importance. The most famous science fiction magazine was John Campbell's Astounding - he was the first to read each new story by Bradbury, but did not show the slightest desire to publish them. Such fantasy did not suit him.

Therefore, Bradbury gradually began to drift towards horror literature. Childish fears were memorable to him, and his typewriter turned them into stylish and unusual stories. Weird Tales already listed him as a regular contributor. And in 1947, he even published the author's collection Dark Carnival in the Arkham House publishing house - it was released and sold out in a rather large circulation for this publishing house of over three thousand copies.

But, of course, for the world of great literature, this was not yet the Real Book.

In 1945, Julius Schwartz submitted one of Bradbury's stories to the New Detective and suddenly received an absolutely rave review. Editor Ryerson Johnson wrote: Without a doubt, Bradbury is the most interesting aspiring author I have ever read. Send me anything he writes.

The wall of the genre corral was broken, the mustangs could go to the prairie. Bradbury's stories circulated in detective magazines, mystery magazines, and there was a breakthrough in science fiction - in 1946 Planet Stories magazine published Picnic for a Million Years - the first fragment of what in a few years will gather under the cover with the heading The Martian Chronicles - and a short story Forgotten by time (which will later receive a new name Ice and Fire), the story of a frenzied time (again time!), Devouring entire generations in a few days ...

More importantly, non-genre popular magazines became interested in Bradbury's prose. His stories appeared in American Mercury, Charm, Collier's, Mademoiselle. Martha Foley included one of these stories in the annual anthology of the Best Stories of the Year. Another was nominated for the O. Henry Award.

When offers to send a story began to come from the prestigious New-Yorker and Harper's, Julius Schwartz wrote to Bradbury that he could no longer help him. When it came to attaching stories to science fiction magazines, Schwartz was the undisputed specialist. he did not have responsible and expensive markets... Here he could not help - nothing ...

Bradbury grew up on science fiction, he was her direct literary descendant, her next generation and her pride. But the fantasy world was no longer the only world available to him. Now all paths were open to him. At the same time, his favorite fantasy still remained with him, but by his very existence he managed to change both her and her perception of the outside world. Just think - glossy magazines with millions of copies did not consider it shameful to reprint his stories, already published once in Weird Tales! Serious critics have argued about his prose. His books were published by major publishing houses. He was invited to write scripts for Hollywood ...

The boy who had read Princess of Mars avidly now wrote The Martian Chronicles.

A teenager filled with delight, admiring living curiosities in circus tents, created the Man in Pictures.

A young man who was fond of technocratic ideas became the author of the brightest anti-technocratic novel 451 ° Fahrenheit.

A writer who used to make a living from horror stories has grown the Golden Apples of the Sun...

In 1950, when The Martian Chronicles came out - over half a century ago! - Ray Bradbury was only thirty years old. Ahead were long years of life, exciting work, continued success, unfading popularity. Prizes, translations into all languages, recognition of contemporaries, the glory of a living classic...

In 1950, he remained the same boy who read Tarzan. In the same year, 1950, he wept like a boy when he learned of the death of its author...

It strikingly combines the fear of darkness and the ability to enjoy the light. His favorite holiday is Halloween. His best enemy is time. Fragile, like a butterfly's wing. Ruthless, like a young voice on the phone. Indifferent, like the tide that every night licks the old artist's masterpieces off the sand...

Another half century will pass (click, click, click - is this really a countdown of years, or are the wheels just powerlessly clattering against each other?), And he will write: When I look in the mirror, I meet the gaze of a boy whose head and heart are overflowing with dreams, delight and indestructible love for life. Yes, he has completely gray hair - but so what? People often ask how I manage to stay so young, how I manage to keep feeling young. It's simple: let your life be filled with all possible rhymes, all possible activities, all possible love. And be sure to find time for laughter - remember what gives you happiness - every day, without exception. This is exactly what I have been doing since early childhood.

I read these lines and think feverishly - the main thing, the main thing, where is the main thing? There is definitely something missing here!

Then I turn the page and see his face. The face of a man who lived both in the world of science and in the world of magic shook hands with the distant past - and the incredible future.

The face of a man destined to live forever.

😉 Greetings to regular and new readers! The article "Ray Bradbury: biography, creativity, facts" is about the life of an American writer known for his works in the genre of science fiction and psychological prose.

Ray Douglas Bradbury is one of the famous writers of the twentieth century, who is considered the founder of science fiction. His works are loved and read all over the world. They have been translated into dozens of languages.

Biography of Ray Bradbury

In 1920, the future writer was born in Waukegan (USA). His father's name was Leonard Bradbury (English), and his mother Esther Moberg (Sweden). There was a legend in their family that they were descendants of the witch Mary Bradbury. Mary was executed in the high-profile Salem witch trials in 1692.

The guy wrote his first story at the age of 12. It was a sequel to Burroughs' novel The Great Warrior of Mars. Due to financial difficulties in the family, he could not purchase this book and came up with the ending of the novel on his own. Bradbury believed that it was the work of Burroughs that had a great influence on his literary taste.

Ray's family moved to Los Angeles in 1934. They were poor, so Ray couldn't go to college. He began to sell newspapers, and in his spare time he visited the library and read books.

Works by Ray Bradbury

At the age of 20, Ray realized that his destiny was to be a writer. Initially, he tried to imitate the style. Later, G. Kuttner, the man to whom Bradbury showed his works, asked to change his priorities. Ray began to create his own unique style.

1937 he joined an association of young authors who created works in the genre of science fiction. His stories are published in some cheap magazines. In parallel, Bradbury closely follows the progress of science and technology. Subsequently, this is embodied in his novels.

At 25, Ray met his future wife, Margaret Maclure. They got married in 1947. Four girls grew up in the family. Margaret worked hard to ensure the financial independence of a large family.

She believed in her beloved husband. Margaret gave him the opportunity to create his stories and grow creatively. The great science fiction writer greatly appreciated the care of his wife and dedicated the novel The Martian Chronicles to her.

In 1953, Bradbury's talent was appreciated. The novel "451 degrees Fahrenheit" was read by a huge number of people in all corners of America. Glory was not long in coming. They decided to film the novel, the writer himself was invited to host a TV show, he tried himself as a screenwriter.

The science fiction writer was invited to visit the USSR, where the author was also sincerely admired.

In 1957, inspiration comes to the writer again and he begins to write actively. His new book "Dandelion Wine" appears. The novel "Trouble Coming" is published. The author creates more dramatic works. One of the most striking is the novel "Death is a lonely affair." He receives a large number of awards.

last years of life

In 1999, Ray suffered a massive stroke and was forced to move around in a wheelchair. But he does not lose his sense of humor and often makes fun of himself in interviews. In 2003, his beloved wife dies. the author worked on the publication of new works. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 91.

Ray and Margaret, 56 years together!

His work has a great positive impact on many generations. He created over 800 works. Including novels and short stories, stories and plays, articles, notes and poems.

With his work, the writer teaches to enjoy life, to create something new, to conquer the planet. The main thing is not to overdo it, so as not to destroy our fragile world.

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