Ray Bradbury (Ray Douglas Bradbury)

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, born in Waukegan, Illinois. His best-known works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man. Writing in a poetic style and preoccupied with questions of media and memory, he became one of the most influential speculative fiction writers of the twentieth century. In 1939 he founded his own science fiction fanzine, Futuria Fantasia, whose four issues were almost entirely written by himself; the Summer and Fall 1939 and Winter 1940 issues held in this collection belong to that series, which also includes the short story "A Little Journey." This self-published venture may be seen as the starting point of his professional writing career.