?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
"SEWN TOGETHER INTO A TAPESTRY" BRADBURY, RAY. The Martian Chronicles. 8vo, publisher's green-grey cloth lettered in red, spine and top board margins faded slightly, spine head bumped; dust jacket, $2.50 price present, flap folds lightly rubbed and creased, short closed tear to top of rear flap, colors bright; bookplate laid-in; custom cloth drop-back case. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950
first edition in unrestored jacket. signed and inscribed by the author likely on or near the day of publication. The inscription reads: "Ray Bradbury / 1st edition / 1950." With the publisher's slip laid-in and signed "Brad." The signature on the review slip is that of Walter Bradbury, the author's publisher, who suggested the episodic structure of the book (as well as the title, according to the author, see below) and steering it successfully into print.
"The Martian Chronicles was a result of my having dinner with Walter Bradbury, a Doubleday editor, no relative of mine, back in 1949. I was poor, my wife was pregnant, we had no money. I went to New York on a Greyhound bus trying to stir up some interest in my stories, because no one wanted them, they wanted novels. So, at dinner one night, Walter Bradbury said, 'What about all those Martian stories? Couldn't they be sewn together into a tapestry and turn it into something called The Martian Chronicles?' I said, 'I'll be damned.'" (www.raybradbury.com/articles_bestselling.html). an important association copy.
