All Summer in a Day: Other Ray Bradbury Works on SparkNotes

The Martian Chronicles (1950)

The Martian Chronicles is a collection of closely related science fiction short stories that is sometimes referred to as a fix-up novel. With its publication, Bradbury became popular with the mainstream American reading public. Previously, he had a strong following among devout science fiction fans, but after the respected author Christopher Isherwood wrote a rave review of the novel, Bradbury became the first science fiction author to be accepted by the literary establishment. Isherwood and others believed that Bradbury had an uncommonly good style.

“The Veldt” (1950)

This short story is set in the futuristic home of George and Lydia Hadley and their children, Peter and Wendy. Machines and computers in the home perform all of the family’s daily tasks, including cooking, cleaning, and other caretaking. “The Veldt” is a science fiction classic written by one of the genre’s most revered writers.

Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

In the spring of 1950, while living with his family in a humble home in Venice, California, Bradbury began writing what was to become Fahrenheit 451 on pay-by-the-hour typewriters in the University of California at Los Angeles library basement. He finished the first draft, a shorter version called The Fireman, in just nine days. Following in the futuristic-dustpan tradition of George Orwell’s 1984, Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 and became Bradbury’s most popular and widely read work of fiction. He produced a stage version of the novel at the Studio Theatre Playhouse in Los Angeles. The seminal French New Wave director François Truffaut also made a critically acclaimed film adaptation in 1967.

Dandelion Wine (1957)

In Dandelion Wine, Bradbury tells a series of inner-related stories about a twelve-year-old boy growing up and learning what life is about over the course of a single summer. While it has autobiographical elements, the novel is a recreation of a boy's childhood, based upon an intertwining of Bradbury's real experiences and his brilliant imagination. In honor of Bradbury, Apollo astronauts named the Dandelion Crater on the moon after this novel.

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a science-fiction fantasy novel published in 1962 about two thirteen-year-old boys, Will and Jim, and their experiences with a mysterious dark carnival that comes to their Midwestern town and the weird and malevolent in the carnival. The novel was adapted into a movie in 1983 for which Bradbury wrote the screenplay.