'I suppose the most important memory is of Mr. He related a formative event of his youth: īradbury was fascinated with carnivals from a young age, and they would feature in such works as The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury's first pay as a writer, at age 14, was for a joke he sold to George Burns to use on the Burns and Allen radio show. Among the creative people he met were special-effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen and radio star George Burns. He often roller-skated through Hollywood in hopes of meeting celebrities. The family arrived with only US$40 (equivalent to $875 in 2022), which paid for rent and food until his father finally found a job making wire at a cable company for $14 a week (equivalent to $306 in 2022), allowing them to stay in Hollywood.īradbury attended Los Angeles High School and was active in the drama club. They eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934 when Bradbury was 14. While in Tucson, Bradbury attended Amphi Junior High School and Roskruge Junior High School. The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, Arizona, during 1926–19–1933 while their father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan. In Bradbury's fiction, 1920s Waukegan becomes Green Town, Illinois.īradbury as a senior in high school, 1938 This period provided foundations for both the author and his stories.

An aunt read him short stories when he was a child. He was given the middle name 'Douglas' after actor Douglas Fairbanks.īradbury was surrounded by an extended family during his early childhood and formative years in Waukegan. Early life īradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, to Esther (née Moberg) Bradbury (1888–1966), a Swedish immigrant, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury (1890–1957), a power and telephone lineman of English ancestry. The New York Times called Bradbury 'An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation' and 'the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream'. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001). Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). īradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951) and The October Country (1955). One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. The car then drives away with Mead inside.Ray Douglas Bradbury ( / ˈ b r æ d ˌ b ɛ r i/ August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. Upon revealing the depth of Mead’s nonconformity, the car instructs Mead get in and tells him he is being taken to a psychiatric institution to be studied for regressive tendencies. This questioning reveals that Mead is nonconformist in many ways: he doesn’t own a television, he is unmarried and lives alone, and he is a writer in a society that doesn’t value the written word. The car interrogates Mead, trying to discover why he is out by himself. On this night, however, Mead meets a robotic police car-the only one left in the city, since crime is virtually nonexistent. He also talks to himself, addressing the people in the homes, asking under his breath what they are watching on television. The other citizens are described as if they are dead: “gray phantoms” who live in “tombs.” As he walks, Mead enjoys taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the natural world. He has done this for ten years and never encountered another person, since all the other people remain inside their homes, mesmerized by the light entertainment programs on their television screens.

As he walks the empty streets, he passes the homes of other citizens, who are inside watching television.

Mead enjoys walking the city streets alone every night. “The Pedestrian” is a dystopian short story that describes one night in the life of Leonard Mead, resident of an unnamed city in the year 2053.

Metaphors in the pedestrian