In today's Gauntlet Press newsletter, publisher Barry Hoffman discussed his relationship with the late Donn Albright, Ray Bradbury's close friend and bibliographer. Incidentally, the e-list special mentioned in the newsletter is a sale on the lettered edition of Gauntlet's PHOENIX 451, which contains three previously unpublished Ray Bradbury stories and is signed by Ray and actor William Shatner. The sale price is one-third off the regular price of $1500. $1000 is still quite expensive, but I'll include a link to the sale after the newsletter just in case anyone might be interested. Here's the newsletter:

"It’s with a heavy heart that Donn Albright passed away June 19th. He was 87 and in the past year had severe health issues. While I worked with Donn since the 1990s he was far more than Ray Bradbury’s bibliographer. He became a good friend of mine and will be sorely missed.

Donn edited most of our Ray Bradbury titles. He would visit Ray in California several times a year and return with outtakes and sample chapters that Bradbury wasn’t happy with. Gauntlet began publishing Bradbury’s classics (The October Country, The Illustrated Man, The Halloween Tree and Something Wicked This Way Comes, to name a few) with Donn adding material to make our Bradbury titles unique.

I asked Ray a number of times to publish Dark Carnival, his first collection. Through the nineties he refused to allow his first collection to be published. Donn came up with an idea that changed his mind.

Bradbury, a gifted artist, had numerous oil paintings. Donn suggested we take the best and tell Ray it would be the cover art for Dark Carnival. All of a sudden Ray became enthusiastic and agreed to allow us to publish the book. Donn added several stories that had been pulled from the initial 1947 release (for space reasons).

Since then Donn had a hand in publishing all of our Bradbury signed limiteds. He stitched together a number of revisions of the unpublished novel Masks (with Ray’s approval) for a coherent beginning, middle and end, as well as adding bonus material that Bradbury had discarded.

One of my favorite Bradbury titles was Match To Flame, Bradbury’s journey to Fahrenheit-451. The book included both published and unpublished short stories and incomplete novellas – all which illuminated Ray’s writing process. And last year, with his daughter Lizzy, he co-edited Phoenix-451, script adaptations of Fahrenheit-451 (see below for an elist special on this title).

Gauntlet's layout designer, my eldest child Dara, shared that they have fond memories of the times we'd get on a three-way-call with Donn to clarify book details. Donn would be the first to admit that he wasn't the best at email, which we had teasingly confirmed to him for this to be true. Therefore, whenever we have book details to discuss, it was best to do so over the phone. Whether it was a conversation between just the two of us, or if Dara was included, Donn would treat us to stories about Ray throughout the course of our visit. This is why "working" with Donn oftentimes felt more like a pleasure and a treat, as opposed to a dry business exchange.

Ray Bradbury’s legacy was enhanced by Donn, and for this we should all be eternally grateful. I’ll miss Donn, yet celebrate him every time I pluck one of my Bradbury books from my shelf."

And here's a link to the PHOENIX 451 lettered edition sale:

https://www.gauntletpress.com/product/phoenix-451/