FAHRENHEIT 451 .. by Bradbury, Ray - [1953].

New York: Ballantine Books, [1953].. Octavo, red boards, front and spine panels stamped in yellow. First edition. Signed on the title page by Bradbury. The hardbound trade issue. (Currey binding D [no priority]). 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. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-153. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 8. Survey of Science Fiction Literature II, pp. 749-55. Very faint staining to front endpapers, a bright, very good copy in good dust jacket with light spotting to spine panel and damp stains, one at lower spine end with spill over onto front and rear panels, the other along the rear spine fold, "451" and publishers logo on spine panel faded to a very light pink, and general dust soiling. Regardless, the jacket presents fairly well. (#162369)