Beautiful Copy Inscribed Within a Week of Publication
The Illustrated Man
Publication: Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1951. First Edition.
Notes: One of Bradbury's most popular collections, eighteen interrelated stories featuring a former carnival freak whose body is covered by animated tattoos inked by a time traveler.
"Most of his best fiction from the 1940s and 1950s has been collected in the Illustrated Man, a fixup [a novel assembled from short stories] whose insubstantial frame story—the stories are living tattoos on the skin of a sideshow freak—does not diminish their power."—Clute and Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 133.
Edition + Condition: First edition (stated). A near fine copy with slight bumping to the spine ends in a near fine dust jacket with very minor color breaks at the spine ends and corners. The spine unfaded and white lettering is still white; scarce thus. Nice signed inscription by Bradbury to early SF fan on the front free endpaper, "For Edward Michel with my best wishes and good luck—From Ray Bradbury March 2, 1951." According to the Spokane Chronicle (February 15, 1951), this book was to be published on February 23, just a week before Bradbury signed this book.
The recipient, Michel, is listed in Mariane Hopkins's Fandom Directory No. 9, living in Minnesota. According to the 1950 census, he worked in the automobile industry in Los Angeles; he moved to Minnesota later in the 1950s.
The ubiquity of Bradbury's later autographs has obscured how decidely uncommon contemporary inscriptions are in Bradbury's 1950s books. Bradbury's popularity really didn't get going until the 1960s. For example, I recently came across a 1959 SF catalog from a dealer who still had the 200-copy asbestos limited edition of Fahrenheit 451 (priced at $4.00) new from the publisher six years after the book came out. E. E. "Doc" Smith, to name one SF author, routinely sold larger limited editions than that in the 1950s.
Item No: #366067
Price: $4,500