I diney new uboot th’ ax’nts, dear sore, but th’ wherds were Stevenson’s.

Phil,
What an interesting thought!
My wife's Mancunian. Mind you, though, she's from Stretford, and the accent there is quite different from what you'll hear in Salford....a mere 2 miles away!

Indeed!

It's a shame we've wandered from the topic, though! At the weekend I plan to check up in Eller and Touponce and post some details of the revisions to Martian Chronicles (and other Bradbury) and when and why they were made.

Frank,

In regard to Poe being succint, etc., you bring up an excellent question, how did the early masters do it without the aid of fax machines, email, and the computer? Did they have literary agents, what about managers, publicists, or hangers-on?

The changes in MC are as follows: "The Fire Balloons" was added and "The Wilderness" replaced "Way in the Middle of the Air."

Personally, I don't think either story is as strong as the rest of the MC collection.

(I had asked the question last year on this site if anyone knew who made the changes and no one then knew--hopefully someone does now.)

Aha! So good to know others celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day! Who invented it, by the way? I first heard about it from Dave Barry in Sept. 03. I observed, but was living in Korea and visiting China when the day rolled around, so I was the only one I knew observing.

Harrrr. Here then be the very place that'll
hold the answers to yer questions...
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

OK, here goes with the full account of the publishing history of Martian Chronicles: what changed, and when, and who made the changes. The following is based on appendix A and chapter 2 of Eller & Touponce's Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction (Kent State University Press, 2004).

May 1950: first edition, containing 15 stories and 11 bridge passages. This version was re-issued in various other editions in 1950, 1951, 1952,1954, 1958, 1978, 2001

Sept 1951: The Silver Locusts, British version of Martian Chronicles. Contains 15 stories and 11 bridge passages. Same as Martian Chronicles, but deletes "Usher II" and adds "The Fire Balloons". These changes were instigated by Bradbury. This version re-issued in various other editions in 1956, 1979, 1980.

1953: UK Science Fiction Book Club edition of The Martian Chronicles. Takes the Silver Locusts text and adds "The Wilderness", giving 16 stories and 11 bridge passages.

Aug 1963: First issue of the "complete" text of Martian Chronicles, comprising 17 stories and 11 bridges. In other words, the same as the 1950 edition, but adding "Fire Balloons" and "Wilderness". This version re-issued in various editions in 1973, 1974, 1976, 1979, 1989.

Nov 1990: a "restored" version of Martian Chronicles, using 16 stories and 11 bridges. Keeps "Fire Balloons" but drops "Wilderness".

Feb 1997: an "updated and revised" version, 16 stories and 11 bridges. Same stories as 1963 "complete" version, but "Way in the Middle of the Air" is dropped as outdated. This edition also shifts all of the dates in the chapter titles 25 years further into the future.

According to Eller (who wrote the textual history sections of The Life of Fiction), Bradbury wanted to continue revising his manuscript of Martian Chronicles even when the original publisher (Doubleday) had put it to bed. When the British publisher came along, Bradbury took the opportunity to make further revisions. At the time of the UK SFBC edition, Bradbury told Anthony Boucher that this was the definitive version of Martian Chronicles.

In 1957, Bradbury had written to his publisher at Doubleday that he wanted the new American edition to adopt the changes used in the UK SFBC version - and also to incoporate "The Strawberry Window". Bradbury even provided a prefix date for the story, and identified where it should be inserted into Chronicles. However, to date it has never been added to the chronology in any published version.

The 1990 version gave Bradbury the chance to restore some cuts he had made for the first edition, which included putting "The Fire Balloons" in (he regretted ever having removed this story).

The date changes in the 1997 version were made by Bradbury himself, as was the decision to drop "Way in the Middle of the Air".

To summarise, then, it really is the case (as I believe dandelion mentioned earlier in this thread) that Ray Bradbury is an inveterate re-writer of his own work. There is evidence of this in the publishing history of most of his books, and it is also evident in his constant revisiting of stories in different media.

I would prefer books to remain fixed - I like the idea of a definitive text, even if it is flawed. I suppose the fact that Ray's books have maintained a fair degree of fixity over the decades is evidence of Ray's broad satisfaction with them, but he evidently can't resist the opportunity to tweak when the chance arises.

I hope this information answers the question that started this thread off!

quote:

Originally posted by Chapter 31:
...Does anyone know what editions of “The Martian Chronicles”, “Fahrenheit 451”, “Dandelion Wine” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes” are true Ray Bradbury versions? Thanks.

Chapter 31,

according to Eller (see reference in my previous post), these seem to be the "definitive" texts approved by Bradbury:

Fahrenheit 451: The original 1954 text is definitive, and was used as the basis for all subsequent editions. However, from the mid-1960s onwards, unauthorised censoring of the text occurred. It wasn't until the 1979 Ballantine edition that the book was restored to its proper state. Apparently all editions after 1979 are correct. The chief offender was the Bal-Hi imprint, which was current from 1967 to 1979, although this currupted text also found its way into other printings.

Dandelion Wine: there appears to only ever have been one text for this. (Note, however, that DW was originally one-half of a much longer manuscript. The other half has been periodically revised by Ray and was recently announced by him to now be ready for publication - nearly 50 years later!)

Something Wicked: again, there has only ever been one text for this. (But again, note that it started as a short story, which became a screenplay, which became a novel, which became a screenplay... Bradbury once again re-writing his way from one medium to another.)

So it looks like Martian Chronicles has lots of variants, all of them due to Bradbury himself, whereas F451 has been adjusted by others without permission. Bradbury's other texts have remained fairly static.

Wow, Phil. Thanks so much for all the research!
And typing!

No problem, I enjoyed it! Just took me a while to find the time.

Thank you, philnic! I never hoped for that kind of response. I really appreciate you taking the time. Now I have exactly the information that I was looking for. I’m satisfied now that Ray made the changes to “The Martian Chronicles” so I’m OK with it and its really good to be assured about the texts of the others. Thanks again!

That's great to know, Philnic! All I knew was that Bradbury was prone to rewriting--I was clueless as to the rest of it.

Thanks for the clear info on the time of the changes. As far as I know, the Bantam paperbacks are still from the "original" version from 1950.