The October Country is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabreshort stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and adds four more of his stories previously published elsewhere.
The collection was published in numerous editions by Ballantine Books. The 1955 hardcover and 1956 and 1962 softcover versions featured artwork by Joseph Mugnaini that was replaced in 1971 by an entirely different Bob Pepper illustration. It was again published in 1996, by Del Rey Books, a branch of Ballantine Books; the illustrations within were drawn by Mugnaini. This edition included a foreword by Bradbury, titled "May I Die Before My Voices", in Los Angeles, California, on April 24, 1996.
The October Country was published in the United Kingdom by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. in 1956, and reissued in 1976 by Grafton, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The 1976 UK paperback edition includes "The Traveler", originally from the aforementioned Dark Carnival, and omits "The Next In Line", "The Lake", "The Small Assassin", "The Crowd", "Jack-In-The-Box", "The Man Upstairs" and "The Cistern".[2]
In 1999, The October Country was published by Avon Books, Inc. with a new cover illustration by Joseph Mugnaini, and a new introduction by Bradbury called "Homesteading the October Country".
Contents
"The Dwarf"
The proprietor of a Mirror Maze and the proprietor of a hoop circus at the same carnival observe a dwarf who uses one of the mirrors to make himself appear taller.[2]:1–16
"The Next in Line"
A couple staying in a small Mexican town comes across a cemetery which holds a shocking policy regarding the interred whose families cannot pay.
"The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse"
A thoroughly dull man becomes the new avant garde craze precisely because he is boring.
"Skeleton"
A man becomes convinced his skeleton is out to ruin him, and consults an unorthodox specialist.
A poor farmer buys a jar with something floating in it for twelve dollars and it soon becomes the conversation piece of the town. However his wife begins to realize that she cannot stand the jar or him.
A man revisits his childhood home and recalls a friend who drowned in a lake during childhood.
"The Emissary"
A sick boy who cannot go outside has only two connections to the world, his dog and a woman who lives in the neighborhood. However the neighbor dies and the dog inexplicably runs off.
"Touched With Fire"
Two old men make it their mission to push fulfillment on unhappy people. They unsuccessfully try to do so with a woman whose story ends bloodily. It was first published under the title "Shopping for Death".
A boy lives with his mother in a vast secluded mansion. She raises him to be God after telling him his father, the original God, was killed by beasts outside.
A man comes into possession of a powerful scythe and a wheat field. He discovers that the task of reaping is more than meets the eye.
"Uncle Einar"
One of two stories in this collection to feature members of the Elliott family, a collection of movie monsters and immortal beings. This story focuses on a character named Uncle Einar, who tries to find a way into the skies after damaging his biological radar.
"The Wind"
A former travel writer becomes mortally afraid that the winds he has defied around the world are gathering to kill him.
"The Man Upstairs"
A young boy suspects the man renting the upper room of his house to be more than a man.
"There Was an Old Woman"
There was an old woman who defied death for years. Death tricked her one-day and stole her body but she wasn't going to let that stop her.
"The Cistern"
A woman describes to her sister how magical the land beneath the sewer must be, where lovers are reunited in death, torture and anguish.
"Homecoming"
The main story concerning the supernatural Elliott family. It chronicles their return to the ancestral home in Illinois for a gathering, and is seen through the eyes of Timothy, a mortal child left on their doorstep and who longs to be like them. Einar from "Uncle Einar" figures prominently. The story later formed the basis for the 2001 novel From the Dust Returned, which also incorporated the "Uncle Einar" story in its narrative.
"The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone"
Fans track down a writer who chose to withdraw into seclusion and cease writing, and get his story from him.
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The novel follows in the viewpoint of Guy Montag, a fireman who soon becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.
Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.
The Martian Chronicles is a science fiction fix-up novel, published in 1950, by American writer Ray Bradbury that chronicles the exploration and settlement of Mars, the home of indigenous Martians, by Americans leaving a troubled Earth that is eventually devastated by nuclear war.
The Illustrated Man is a 1951 collection of 18 science fiction short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. A recurring theme throughout the stories is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952.
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury, and the second book in his Green Town Trilogy. It is about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24. In dealing with the creepy figures of this carnival, the boys learn how to combat fear. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark", who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople's secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the life force of those it enslaves. Mr. Dark's presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, the janitor of the town library, who harbors his own secret fear of growing older because he feels he is too old to be Will's dad.
Dark Carnival is a short story collection by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published October 1947 by Arkham House. It was his debut book, and many of the stories were reprinted elsewhere.
I Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from an included short story of the same title, which in turn took the title from a poem by Walt Whitman published in his collection Leaves of Grass.
The Listerdale Mystery is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins and Sons in June 1934. The book retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). The collection did not appear in the US; however, all of the stories contained within it did appear in other collections only published there.
Gerda Marie Fredrikke Wegener was a Danish illustrator and painter. Wegener is known for her fashion illustrations and later her paintings that pushed the boundaries of her time concerning gender and love. These works were classified as lesbian erotica at times and many were inspired by her partner, transgender painter Lili Elbe. Wegener employed these works in the styles of Art Nouveau and later Art Deco.
The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004) is a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The name of its title story comes from a phrase in English meaning a sought after and fancy thing. Another collection by the same name was published in the same year by fellow science fiction author James Morrow.
The Stories of Ray Bradbury is an anthology containing 100 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published by Knopf in 1980. The hundred stories, written from 1943 to 1980, were selected by the author himself. Bradbury's work had previously been collected in various compilations, such as The Martian Chronicles and The October Country, but never in such a large volume or spanning such a long period of time.
The Hound of Death and Other Stories is a collection of twelve short stories by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom in October 1933. Unusually, the collection was not published by Christie's regular publishers, William Collins & Sons, but by Odhams Press, and was not available to purchase in shops.
The following is a list of works by Ray Bradbury.
The Small Assassin (1962) is a short story collection by American writer Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle, and in Bradbury's first book, Dark Carnival.
From the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury published in 2001. The novel is largely created from a series of short stories Bradbury wrote decades earlier, centering on a family of Illinois-based monsters and ghosts named the Elliotts. The six previously published stories originally appeared in the magazines The Saturday Evening Post, Mademoiselle and Weird Tales as well as Bradbury's earlier collections Dark Carnival and The Toynbee Convector. Two of the stories, "Homecoming" and "Uncle Einar", were also anthologized in The October Country. Three new short stories are included, as well as several chapters to help connect the stories.
Joseph Anthony Mugnaini was an Italian-born American artist and illustrator. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Ray Bradbury, beginning in 1952.
"The Scythe" is a short story by American author Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the July 1943 issue of Weird Tales. It was first collected in Bradbury's anthology Dark Carnival and later collected, in revised form, in The October Country and The Stories of Ray Bradbury.
The Illustrated Man is a 1969 American dark science fiction drama film directed by Jack Smight and starring Rod Steiger as a man whose tattoos on his body represent visions of frightening futures. The film is based on three short stories from the 1951 collection The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury: "The Veldt," "The Long Rain," and "The Last Night of the World."
The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury is an ongoing scholarly, multi-volume series published by Kent State University Press, aiming to collect every short story written by American author Ray Bradbury in chronological order. The series is edited by William F. Touponce and Jonathan R. Eller, with extensive textual apparatus providing critical insights and annotations. The project is expected to span eight volumes and has received approval from the Modern Language Association (MLA) for its academic rigor. Each story is edited based on Bradbury's original manuscripts, with commentary on textual variants and publication history.
"The Lake" is a short story by American author Ray Bradbury. It was first published in the May 1944 edition of Weird Tales, and later collected in Bradbury's collections Dark Carnival, The October Country, and The Stories of Ray Bradbury. In an article written by Bradbury called "Run Fast, Stand Still" which was later collected in his book Zen in the Art of Writing, "The Lake" was written in two hours and led to him believing it was the finest story he'd ever written at that point in time.
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