The Playboy Letters
Archive of 37 Typed Letters, Signed, to Playboy Staff, with In-House Playboy Notes and Memos About Bradbury
Publication: 1962–1972.
Notes: Ray Bradbury was, above all, a short-story writer, and in the 1960s Playboy was one of his most lucrative publication venues, earning him $2,000 to $3,000 each time they published something (according to the US Census, the median family income in 1965 was $6,900). These letters, written to and from the magazine's editorial staff, show how at the beginning of the decade Bradbury was eager to publish in the magazine; by the second half of the 1960s, it was Playboy that pursued him, looking for material. In the early 1970s, both parties had mostly moved on.
Bradbury, a committed self-promoter, writes enthusiastically about movies, which he calls "the most important artform in history," and about his efforts to stage the plays he wrote (Hugh Heffner, through his staff, declined to be an investor). The most revealing letter—one of two that extend to a second page—defends his views about the Irish. Accompanying Bradbury's 37 letters are nearly 70 pages of memos from Bradbury's agent, Don Congdon, as well as various members of the Playboy staff discussing their views on payments and the stories and essays Bradbury submitted. Sometimes Playboy's editors loved his work and sent him bonus checks; other times they rejected it or published it even though most of the editorial staff had reservations.
A substantial collection of letters about Bradbury's work in the 1960s. The are listed in the order they appear in the binder containing the collection.
1. Feb. 16, 1962. TLS on cream-colored paper. "Dear Hugh: Here's a wild one from my friend Sid Stebel, titled LIFE..." Bradbury recommends a story to Playboy by a longtime friend. Signed "Ray B." About 40 words. Story not present.
2. June 17, 1962. TLS on cream-colored paper. To Auguste C. Spectorsky, associate publisher at Playboy, asking him to meet Bradbury's friend Dan Greenberg (sic, Greenburg), who wanted to pitch travel stories to the magazine. With a hand-written postscript, "I was heartened to hear of your buying 'Machineries of Joy' this week. Bravo!." Greenburg later was the managing editor of the hardcover magazine Eros and wrote humor and children's books. Signed "Ray Bradbury." About 100 words.
3. June 23, 1962. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky, asking about the publication schedules for his stories The Queen's Own (The Anthem Sprinters) and The Machineries of Joy. Apparently Playboy wanted to delay publication of The Anthem Sprinters, but it was scheduled to be included in a book shortly before Christmas and Playboy would need to print it first. (In the end Machineries of Joy was published in December 1962 and Queen's Own in June 1963; the book The Anthem Sprinters was delayed until 1963). Signed "Ray Bradbury."About 175 words.
4. Sept. 14, 1962. TNS on blue paper. To Murray Fisher, thanking him for nice comments about Bradbury's Cosmos article in Life magazine. Signed "Ray." About 20 words.
5. Aug. 17, 1962. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky, nicely putting off an apparent request for a story to publish in Playboy ("Some new ones will be coming your way soon"). Bradbury begins by wishing Playboy well on its planned book publishing. "Books are burgeoning. And after all the doomful predictions that tv would leave the country a barren wasteland." He also writes about a commission from Life magazine to write about the Apollo age and a request from Sam Bass that Bradbury work on a film for the New York World's Fair. Bradbury concludes, presumably referring to his wife and four daughters, "I know I'm surrounded by a sea of women, but...those Bunnies look awfully good." Signed "Ray." About 275 words.
6. Oct. 9, 1962. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. About the story Heavy-Set, which Playboy had agreed to buy. Apparently there was some confusion—Playboy wanted changes and Bradbury said he was willing to revisit the text "if and when [he] saw places to make the changes." He continues, "I can only repeat, I will continue to re-read the story. It will not be out of my mind. As the months pass I hope to see some small change which I can make. If not, I'll tell you, and you can publish the story as it stands." (The story was published in October 1964.) Signed "Ray." About 175 words.
7. Mar. 11, 1963. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. About an article about horror films commissioned by Playboy. Bradbury explains that there is interest in a TV special on the same subject and attempts to negotiate doing both (according to The Bradbury Companion, neither materialized). He concludes with his thesis about horror films: "If among other things we had more good horror films, our society would be less sick than it is. I'm not saying we could cure ourselves completely, but we could do better than we have been doing ever since we gave up understanding what art, films, novels, stories, myths, etc., can do for us in the way of discharging our tensions before they accumulate to the point of destruction." Signed "Ray." About 350 words.
8. May 13, 1963. TLS on white paper. To the distribution department. Requests 30 copies of the Playboy with his story The Queen's Own Evaders or thirty sets of tear sheets. Signed "Ray Bradbury." About 50 words.
9. May 26, 1963. TLS on cream-colored paper. To Jack [Kessie, managing editor]. Bradbury says that he is unable to attend the Playboy Writer's Convocation because, "I have finalized plans to stage my three one-act plays here and the dress-rehearsal and opening nights coincide with the Playboy dates you have set up for your meetings." He writes about his interest in movies: "I hope to do an article... for you on my love of films and the reasons why I feel they are the most important artform in history." Signed "Ray." About 225 words.
10. Sept. 4, 1963. TLS on onionskin paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. About the story The Vacation, which was included in the galleys for The Machineries of Joy. Bradbury asks if Playboy still plans to publish it (they did, in December 1963) or if he should pull it from the book. He also mentions Truffaut's plans to film Fahrenheit 451. Signed "Ray." About 125 words.
11. [N.D. circa. January 1973?]. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Murry Fisher. Requests tearsheets for several articles and promises to send more work. Signed "Ray." About 100 words.
12. Aug. 18, 1963. TLS on cream-colored paper. To the distribution department. Requests 20 copies of the Playboy with his story The Life Work of Juan Diaz or the same number of tear sheets. Signed "Ray Bradbury." About 50 words.
13. Sept. 10, 1963. TLS on white paper. To Jack Kessie. Responding to a letter from Kessie (carbon copy present in this collection) asking why Bradbury wants so many tear sheets ("you've topped all records," Kessie wrote). Bradbury responds, "If a man is a real working, thinking, planning, imaginative writer, he sends his stories around everywhere, to people he wishes to impress, or sell to." He explains that he got the job writing the screenplay for Moby Dick "in just this way. I gave all of my books to John Huston, and then, over a two year period, sent him tearsheets of stories to let him know what I was up to." He planned to send tearsheets of the Juan Diaz story to a number of film directors, including Jack Clayton, Carol Reed, Ingmar Bergman, and Satyajit Ray. Then Bradbury asks for ten more tearsheets. "If I give away just one copy a year, that means in twenty years I will have none." Signed, "Ray." About 325 words, with five holograph corrections.
14. Nov. 14, 1963. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. Thanking him for the news that Bradbury's story The Vacation is the lead fiction piece in the holiday issue of Playboy and for the additional check (According to a retained carbon, Playboy paid $1750 initially and then added a bonus of $1250).
15. Apr. 5, 1964. TLS on cream-colored paper. To Murry Fisher, requesting more tearsheets of The Vacation. Concludes, "The rumor is that Truffaut may well use...Chicago! [where Playboy was based] as his locale for my F.451 film to be shot this summer." Signed "Ray." About 75 words.
16. Apr. 15, 1964. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Jack Kessie, transmitting a poem (not present). Signed "Ray." About 60 words.
17. May 12, 1964. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead (1 page, with postscript on the verso). To Hugh Hefner. Soliciting Hefner as an investor in Bradbury's planned play series and a proposed short film based on the story The Vacation. "Strange to consider, this will be the first evening of one-act Space Age, or, if you wish, Science-Fiction plays, in the history of the theatre, that I know of. Even in the three-act field, there have only been a scant half-dozen s-f plays produced in the USA in the last forty years, and only one s-f opera in the history of the world, Aniara, done in Sweden a few years ago." Signed "Ray." About 325 words.
18. June 16, 1964. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. About Bradbury's play series being fully funded and responding to a request to convert them into short stories, which he declines. Bradbury also discusses a planned car trip to Chicago with a planned stop in Waukegan, his home town which he hadn't seen in fourteen years, although it had featured in his writing. Signed, "Ray." About 250 words.
19. July 20, 1964. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Jack Kessie. Apparently Bradbury was unable to make a planned visit to the Playboy offices. He apologizes for the inconvenience, "The scene at the train station was right out of Dante's dirtiest pocket. Chaos sweated forth in grimy flesh." Signed "Ray." About 50 words.
20. July 20, 1964. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. Another apology about the missed meeting. "Having my two youngest daughters with me was a complicating factor...and all three of us were dying of heat in the train station when I telephoned you." Signed "Ray." About 100 words.
21. Oct. 14, 1964. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To the circulation department asking for tearsheets of the story Heavy-Set. Signed "Ray Bradbury." About 25 words.
22. Nov. 15, 1964. TLS on a half sheet of cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. Requests a change the first word in the title of his essay Remembrances of Things Future to Remembrance, dropping the S to parallel the title of Proust's novel, Remembrance of Things Past (It was too late, and the title ran in the plural). Signed "Ray." About 80 words.
23. May 17, 1965. Two-page TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. A long letter defending his views on the Irish in response to Playboy's rejection of the story The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place. "Ireland is indeed a joke, much of it. The Irish not only dispense but collect grievances, they ARE bumbling clowns... There isn't one thing in Irish history that wasn't badly done and therefore comic. The Rebellion was another of those clownish things full of humor as well as terror and destruction... You don't have to hate the Irish to enjoy all of this terrible silliness. The fact is, my story is a love story to the Irish, for they represent our own silliness in our own politics here in America. Except we don't have the gift to laugh at ourselves often enough." At the end of the letter, Bradbury adds a handwritten note, "Never ask an American Irishman about Ireland! They can't face the truth about it! They think you hate Ireland because you laugh—not so! R." Signed "Ray." More than 500 words.
24. July 15, 1966. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Murray Fisher. Informing him that Bradbury has completed a draft of his essay on horror films, tentatively called Death of the Undead (eventually converted into an essay lamenting the loss of belief in the supernatural in the scientific age and published as Death Warmed Over in January 1968). Signed "Ray." About 75 words.
25. July 7, 1966. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. Bradbury wants to see typeset pages because he would like to edit the three pieces Playboy has purchased. Signed "Ray." About 75 words.
26. July 10, 1967. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. Bradbury proposes a year-long series in Playboy of an illustrated Martian Chronicles with artwork by Joe Magnaini. (The artwork accompanying the letter is not present; it was returned). He also describes his lifelong interest in the comics Buck Rogers and Prince Valiant. Signed "Ray." (The accompanying internal Playboy notes are not complimentary and two focus on the depictions of women—"too bad the Martian women are such skinny dogs" and "I doubt there would even be enough sex to justify it.") About 225 words.
27. Halloween, 1967. TLS on cream-colored paper. To A. C. Spectorsky. Expresses thanks for the return of the Martian Chronicles artwork and offers a brief update on his film with Picasso, the movie adaptation of The Illustrated Man, and the BBC Radio production of Leviathan 99. Signed "Ray." About 125 words.
28. March 12, 1969. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. Recommends he meet with Mary H. Hall, formerly the editor of Psychology Today. Signed "Ray." About 65 words.
29. May 11, 1969. TLS on Illustrated Man letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. Acknowledging receipt of a $1,000 advance for Bradbury's trip to Europe and the expectation of articles to be written about it. Signed "Ray." About 100 words.
30. June 7, 1969. TLS on Illustrated Man letterhead. To A. C. Spectorsky. Proposing a lunch meeting while Bradbury is on his way to Europe. "Can you arrange to have someone pick me and my 4 daughters up at the station and deliver them to some good restaurant where you will be waiting with two tables...one for you and me...the other, nearby, for my 4 daughters...And have your driver standby so that promptly at 3:30 or thereabouts, we could head for the Broadway Limited [the train to New York]." Signed "Ray." About 225 words. [A note at the bottom says the proposal was declined]
31. August 22, Apollo, Year One [1969]. TLS on Illustrated Man letterhead. To Murray Fisher. Thanking him for "a fine day in Chicago, the good picnic on the beach..." About 75 words; one hand correction. Dated in holograph; signed "Ray." About 75 words.
32. January 29, 1971. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. A. C. Spectorsky. Pitching an essay on where Bradbury's ideas come from; this is proposed as an article that would apply against the $1,000 advance given to Bradbury for his European trip. At the end, Bradbury notes that Playboy just bought the story Utterly Perfect Murder. Apparently, the advance was to apply against a non-fiction article, not his fiction. [Accompanying in-house memos show that Playboy was not enthusiastic about the proposal]. Signed "Ray." About 325 words.
33. February 15, 1971. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Arthur Kretchner, Articles Editor. "I would love to do the Space Age/Poetry/Transcendence article you suggest." Dated in holograph; signed "Ray B." About 75 words.
34. April 4, 1971. TLS on Illustrated Man letterhead. To Arthur Kretchner. "I am working along on From Stone Henge to Tranquility Base (my title)." One hand correction. Signed "Ray." About 50 words.
35. January 30, 1972. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Art Kretchner. "I was shocked to hear of Spec's death the other day... Never met him but had some nice chats on the phone, and fine letters." Bradbury goes on to explain why he has not finished his article on the Space Age. "From October 1st until now, my wife has been in-hospital and now, thank God, recovering. In that same time... I have finished rewriting my musical Dandelion Wine, my drama Leviathan 99 (both open here in L.A. soon), my novel The Halloween Tree, and my book of poems, When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." He hopes to have the article done in eight weeks. Dated in holograph; signed "Ray." About 200 words.
36. May 22nd, 1972. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Arthur Kretchner. Transmitting the "article on Space, the Apollo Flights, and Man's Future with both." Signed "Ray." About 60 words (article typescript not present). Accompanied by 18 internal notes about the story, most of them negative, but Playboy ran it anyway.
37. October 25, 1971. TLS on Cheviot Drive letterhead. To Murray Fisher. Sending a copy (not present) of Leviathan 99, a stage play adapted from a radio play. Dated in holograph; signed "Ray." About 125 words.
Edition + Condition: The letters are in a binder, housed in a custom clamshell box. The letters are generally near fine (folded for mailing). Some of the internal Playboy memos are carbons on acidic paper which has browned with age.
Provenance: Christie's Playboy at 50 Sale (Dec. 17, 2003) to Tom Garner. At the time of the auction, the archive included additional material, not present here.
Item No: #364770
Price: $13,500