By now you probably know that Ray Bradbury passed away on June 6.

Or possibly the day before.

Just after high school in 1970 my buddy and I did a horror film fanzine and I wanted to have a tribute section to Forry Ackerman. I had just started corresponding with Robert Bloch, and I asked him if he could give me Ray Bradbury's address. I knew that when Bradbury and Ackerman were very young, Forry had paid Ray's way into the First World Science Fiction Convention in 1939. I was truly amazed when I got a letter from Bradbury with his wee tribute to 4SJ. It was thrilling. We actually read one of his books for a high school class. Peace unto his shade.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

Has someone here read Dark Carnival? Can you describe any conspicuous differences in the texts from how those same stories appear revised in The October Country?

I think the quality of Bradbury's best weird and allegorical writing is second to none.

Bradbury completely rewrote "The Emissary", which first appeared in DARK CARNIVAL when he included it in OCTOBER COUNTRY. The original version is more diract and rather flat.

There are revisions, yes, but more importantly, there are stories (or sketches) in Dark Carnival that are not in any other collection of Bradbury's I've seen. Check out the table of contents between the two; you'll find a considerable difference.

I believe Ray said something along the line that he thought some of the horrors in his early stories in Dark Carnival were too harsh, and he therefore had to blunt down a few of its edges.

jimrockhill2001 Wrote:
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> Bradbury completely rewrote "The Emissary", which
> first appeared in DARK CARNIVAL when he included
> it in OCTOBER COUNTRY. The original version is
> more direct and rather flat.


Anyhow, I think I much prefer the joy of reading that mature quality Bradbury writing, than absolutely needing to have a look out of curiosity at some early "adolescently" chocking horror details that he later absolutely no longer wanted to be associated with. He even tried to track down all copies of DARK CARNIVAL and buy them, to prevent people from reading those early versions. When it is that important to a writer, I guess one has to respect it and leave it be.

But some artists/writers reject, or censure, some of their early work that is of the highest and most expressive artistic quality. Because they have grown in a different direction, or because political correctness no longer makes publication possible.