Raymond Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, to Leonard Spaulding and Esther Moberg Bradbury. He began his writing career while still a teenager, publishing Futuria Fantasia, a fan magazine. His first professional sale, the short story “Pendulum,” appeared in the November 1941 edition of Super Science Stories.
After working as a newsboy from 1940 until 1943, Bradbury turned to a full-time writing career. During the 1940s his work was published in several science-fiction magazines, including Weird Tales.
The 1950s and early 1960s proved to be Bradbury’s most productive time as a fiction writer. Published in 1950, his first short story collection, The Martian Chronicles, achieved enormous popularity. Several more collections followed; The Illustrated Man, The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy, and The Machineries of Joy were among the most successful. He also published three novels-Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He served as president of the Science Fantasy Writers of America (1951-1953) and as a member of the Screen Writers Guild board of directors (1957-1961).
From the mid-1960s, Bradbury concentrated his literary efforts on drama and poetry. He achieved a modicum of success with his drama; several of his plays-including The Anthem Sprinters and Other Antics (1963), The World of Ray Bradbury (1964), and Leviathan 99 (1972)-were staged in Los Angeles or New York.
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