Who Wrote Fahrenheit 451, When Was It Published, and Where Is It Set?
Nine days, a bag of dimes and a library basement
Bradbury liked to tell the story of how his most famous book was written. A young father with no money and no office, he went looking for somewhere quiet and found a room full of coin-operated typewriters under a university library.
The story he typed there grew, two years later, into the novel almost every American student now reads.
Fahrenheit 451 was written by Ray Bradbury and published in October 1953 by Ballantine Books. It grew out of a shorter story, The Fireman, which Bradbury wrote in about nine days on a rented typewriter in the basement of the UCLA library.
It is set in an unnamed American city in an unspecified future, a few decades after its readers' own time, in a country that has already fought and won several wars.
Fahrenheit 451 in brief
| Fact | Answer |
|---|---|
| Author | Ray Bradbury (1920 to 2012) |
| First version | The Fireman, Galaxy magazine, February 1951 |
| Published | October 1953, Ballantine Books |
| Length | About 160 pages; about 46,000 words |
| Parts | 3: The Hearth and the Salamander; The Sieve and the Sand; Burning Bright |
| Setting | An unnamed future American city |
| Genre | Dystopian science fiction |
| Serialized | Playboy, March to May 1954 |
Who was Ray Bradbury?
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920 and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. His family could not afford college, so he educated himself in public libraries, which he said were his real university. He sold stories to pulp magazines and became famous with The Martian Chronicles in 1950. He wrote hundreds of stories and books, including Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes, and died in 2012.
↑ Back to the topThe rented typewriter
In 1950 Bradbury had young children at home and no quiet room. In the basement of UCLA's library he found typewriters for rent at ten cents for each half hour, so he brought a bag of dimes. Over nine days he wrote The Fireman, spending, by his own count, 9 dollars and 80 cents. Upstairs he could wander among the shelves and pull down books for inspiration, which he said gave the story its passion.
Galaxy magazine published The Fireman in February 1951. The publisher Ian Ballantine then asked him to expand it, and Bradbury returned to the library to write the full novel, which appeared in October 1953.
↑ Back to the topThe asbestos edition
The first paperback appeared alongside a hardcover, and both included two extra short stories. A special run of about 200 signed copies was bound in a fire-resistant asbestos material, a joke that has made them collectors' items. In 1954 the novel was serialized in the early issues of Playboy, which brought it a huge new audience.
↑ Back to the topWhere and when is Fahrenheit 451 set?
Bradbury never names the city or the year. It is a large American city of fast cars, wall-sized screens and jet bombers overhead, with countryside and railway lines beyond. The book mentions that the country has started and won two atomic wars in recent decades, and a new war is about to begin. Leaving the setting vague makes it feel like any city, which is part of its power.
↑ Back to the topMore about Fahrenheit 451
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