Jonathan R. Eller (B.S., United States Air Force Academy, 1973; B.A., University of Maryland, 1979; M.A. (1981), Ph.D. (1985), Indiana University) is an Emeritus Chancellor’s Professor of English, and retired co-founder of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, a research component of Indiana University’s School of Liberal Arts (IUPUI). He co-founded the Bradbury Center within the Institute for American Thought in 2007 and served as the Center’s director from August 2011 until his retirement from Indiana University in early 2021. Eller edited and established the texts for the three-volume Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury series and served as general editor for volumes 2 and 3. He was general editor for issues 4, 5, and 6 of The New Ray Bradbury Review.
Eller’s friendship and working relationship with Ray Bradbury began in the late 1980s. In 1993 he retired from a twenty-year Air Force career and joined the School of Liberal Arts faculty at IUPUI; his military service included operational assignments with the Tactical Air Command, the Military Airlift Command, and the Pacific Air Forces before duty as an English professor at both the U.S. Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs) and the U. S. Naval Academy (Annapolis). Since 2000 Eller has edited or co-edited several limited press editions of Ray Bradbury’s fiction, including The Halloween Tree (2005), Dandelion Wine (2007), and two collections of stories related to Bradbury’s publication of Fahrenheit 451 in 1953: Match to Flame (2006) and A Pleasure to Burn (2010). Since 2013 he has prefaced and prepared new historical sections for Simon & Schuster’s 60th anniversary edition of Fahrenheit 451 and for the latest Simon & Schuster edition of Something Wicked This Way Comes.
His most recent books include the biographical trilogy Becoming Ray Bradbury (2011), Ray Bradbury Unbound (2014), and Bradbury Beyond Apollo (2020). Four of Professor Eller’s books on Bradbury have been LOCUS award finalists for best nonfiction title in the science fiction and fantasy field; in 2021 Bradbury Beyond Apollo was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association.
Since retiring from Indiana University, Eller has prepared and edited a two-volume set of Bradbury’s fiction for the Library of America’s extensive series of American literary classics: Novels & Story Cycles (2021) and a collection of his short fiction containing The Illustrated Man, The October Country, and selected stories (fall 2022).
