FAHRENHEIT 451: THE 40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION.
New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore: Simon & Schuster, [1993]. Octavo, cloth. New edition. One of 500 numbered copies signed by Bradbury. New foreword by Ray Bradbury. This edition omits the other two stories from the original publication "The Playground" and "The Rock Cried Out." A short novel expanded from the novella "The Fireman" published in 1951. "While the jet bombers boom overhead and another nuclear war threatens, Americans live a mindless life in a society where everyone is encouraged to lose himself in such distractions as four-wall television, hearing-aid radios, high-speed travel, and group sports. Life is reduced to the paste-pudding norm of a mass audience, for it serves the purpose of the government to keep people from thinking ... The gadget are, of course, marvelous and everywhere, while the greatest enemies of the status quo are books, which, when they are occasionally discovered, are burned by firemen who are, in this fireproof age, no longer needed to put out fires, but to set them ..." - Hillegas, The Future as Nightmare, pp. 158-9. "In a totalitarian state, books are burned and private thought or action is criminal." - Gerber, Utopian Fantasy (1973), p. 159. Filmed in 1966 by Francois Truffaut. [Reference: Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-154. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-32. Bleiler: The Guide to Supernatural Fiction #255. Pringle: Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels #3]. A fine copy, no jacket as issued in slipcase. (31472). Item #31472
Price: $450.00