The Vintage Bradbury (1965)

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0679729461, Paperback)

As tersely stated on the cover, this is "Ray Bradbury's own selection of his best stories." The Vintage Bradbury contains 22 classic stories, plus four chapters excerpted from his first mainstream novel, Dandelion Wine. His career as an author was only about 15 years old when he compiled this volume in 1965 for the prestigious Vintage imprint. Like the vast majority of his collections, it has never been out of print. Bradbury's own selection of "his best" is also intriguing because most of the stories chosen are from the beginning of his career, and most are quite hauntingly sad. "The Illustrated Man" relates the ultimate fate of the tattooed title character from the novel of the same name. "The Fog Horn" is the tragic love story of a dinosaur who believes the horn's wail is actually that of his lost mate. "Hail and Farewell" tells of a 43-year-old man who is fated to never look older than 12. Although later upstaged by the truly definitive The Stories of Ray Bradbury, this remains a fitting introduction to one of the world's great fantasists and prose stylists. --Stanley Wiater