Archive

The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies curates one of the larger single-author collections in the United States. The papers and books gifted in 2013 include more than 100,000 pages of published and unpublished literary works stored in thirty-one of the author’s filing cabinets; forty years of his personal and professional correspondence (an additional 10,000 pages); author’s copies of his books, including extensive foreign language editions, and his working library (a combined 4000 volumes). The broader collection of papers includes manuscripts, typescripts, screenplay and teleplay drafts, story concepts, photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks with original drawings and printed comic strips from his youth, and ephemera he collected documenting his travels. Yet another 10,000 pages of papers and writings that never made it into his filing cabinets have also now been sorted into rough categories in preparation for preservation and accessioning efforts. Below is an outline of those holdings that make up the Center’s “Ray Bradbury Archive.”

Author’s Books, Center copies

The Center is home to research copies of Bradbury’s published works, including successive editions and the various reprintings and issues within each edition. This extensive holding also includes many foreign editions of Bradbury’s works, representing over twenty international languages. The Center updates its holdings as new editions are released.

Highlights:

• A rare 1967 edition of Fahrenheit 451
• Newly published Egyptian, Armenian, and Tamil language editions of Bradbury’s works

Author’s papers

Including manuscripts, typescripts, teleplays, screenplays, and correspondence, the archive of Bradbury’s papers (approximately 110,000 pages) makes up the bulk of the Center’s archival collections.

Highlights:

• Drafts and notes for his award-winning Life Magazine essays on the American space program
• Intermediate and final drafts of novels from the second half of his career, including Graveyard for Lunatics, From the Dust Returned, and Green Shadows, White Whale
• Extensive files of original letters from thousands of Bradbury’s correspondents from the period 1969 to the end of his life in 2012

Audiovisual Recordings, interviews

The Center’s copies of Bradbury’s audiovisual interviews and public appearances offer valuable insights into the author’s personal and creative life. Many of these analog audio and video artifacts have been digitized. The Center maintains the capability to view and listen to both the analog and digital versions on site.

Highlights:

• Interviews with Hollywood figures involved with science fiction film history, such as Gene Roddenberry, director Irv Kirchner, and Gary Kurtz
• A series of interviews between Don Congdon, Bradbury’s agent, and Bradbury conducted during the middle period of the author’s life

Film/television/music recordings

The films, television shows, and stage plays adapted by Bradbury and other writers from Bradbury works. Many formats are represented, including film production reels, Betamax, VHS, DVD, and BlueRay. The film and analog original recordings are in the process of being digitized through an Indiana University initiative. Playback equipment available.

Highlights:

• Bradbury’s copies of 16mm program reels from episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour adapted from his work
• A 35mm master reel of Quest, a film adopted from Bradbury’s story “Frost and Fire” by filmmaker and graphic artist Saul Bass
• Approval tape copies of various Bradbury films, including an early version of Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Rough-cuts and approval copies of the Ray Bradbury Theater television episodes