"THIS DANDELION!": DANDELION WINE, COLORFULLY INSCRIBED BY RAY BRADBURY WITH A SKETCH OF A DANDELION

BRADBURY, Ray. Dandelion Wine. Garden City: Doubleday, 1957. Octavo, original yellow cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $4900.

First edition of Bradbury's semi-autobiographical novel, boldly inscribed by him using several colors of pencil over the entire front free endpaper: "For Matthew Stiller!?!!! This dandelion! [sketch of dandelion] With good wishes! from Ray Bradbury, Oct. 4, '92."

"Dandelion Wine is one of Bradbury's autobiographical fantasies, a novel that fully embodies Bradbury's love for creating eccentric characters and exploring their lives. The novel is more autobiographical than fantasy (unlike its companion, Something Wicked This Way Comes), with the majority of events being daily moments of life in the Midwest in the late 1920s. The main character, Douglas Spaulding, is based on Bradbury… Considered one of Bradbury's strongest works, the novel has received a good deal of acclaim and critical attention" (Reid, 63). Dandelion Wine was Bradbury's "first chance to develop a true novel from the experiences of his Illinois youth… It has never been out of print since its publication in 1957. But it is nonetheless a novelized story cycle closer (in terms of structure) to The Martian Chronicles than to its sister work, Something Wicked This Way Comes" (Eller & Touponce, 208). "Much of Bradbury's work, whether in fantasy, science fiction, realistic fiction or even horror is infused with a pastoral nostalgia, and nowhere is this trait more pronounced than in Dandelion Wine. The author effectively evokes the transition of the novel's protagonist from childhood to early adolescence" (Barron, Fantasy and Horror 7-45). Currey, 44.

Book and dust jacket near-fine. An excellent inscribed copy.