In Ray Bradbury Unbound, Jonathan R. Eller continues the story begun in his acclaimed Becoming Ray Bradbury, following the beloved author's evolution from a short story master to a multi-media creative force and outspoken visionary.

At the height of his powers as a poetic prose stylist, Bradbury shifted his creative attention to film and television, where new successes gave him an enduring platform as a compelling cultural commentator. His passionate advocacy validated the U.S. space program's mission, extending his pivotal role as a chronicler of human values in an age of technological wonders.

Informed by many years of interviews with Bradbury as well as an unprecedented access to personal papers and private collections, Ray Bradbury Unbound provides the definitive portrait of how a legendary American author helped shape his times.

|Acknowledgments / xi

Introduction / 1

Part I. A Place in the Sun / 5

1 Loomings / 7

2 Strangers in a Strange Land / 12

3 Indecisions, Visions, and Revisions / 17

4 Fatal Attraction / 22

5 A Whale of a Tale / 28

6 "Floreat!" / 33

7 A Place in the Sun / 39

P art II. T he End of the Beginning / 45

8 Post-Scripts / 47

9 Invitations to the Dance / 55

10 Pictures within Pictures: The October Country / 61

11 Laughton and Hitchcock / 67

12 "The First to Catch a Circus in a Lie Is a Boy" / 74

13 Various Wines / 81

14 The End of the Beginning / 89

P art III. Dark Carnivals / 97

15 Strange Interlude: Dandelion Wine / 99

16 Return to Hollywood / 106

17 "And the Rock Cried Out" / 110

18 Berenson at Sunset / 116

19 The Unforeseen / 120

20 Dreams Deferred / 128

21 The Great Wide World / 133

22 The Dreamers / 139

23 Dark Carnivals / 144

Part IV. "Cry the Cosmos" / 151

24 Medicines for Melancholy / 153

25 Escape Velocity / 159

26 Martian Odyssey / 167

27 "Cry the Cosmos" / 175

28 In the Twilight Zone / 182

29 Something Wicked This Way Comes / 191

30 Out of the Deeps / 200

31 Machineries of Joy / 208

Part V. I f the Sun Dies / 217

32 A Backward Glance / 219

33 Stops of Various Quills / 225

34 The World of Ray Bradbury / 232

35 If the Sun Dies / 237

36 Truffaut's Phoenix / 242

37 A Colder Eye / 250

38 The Isolated Man / 257

39 A Touch of the Poet / 263

40 "Christus Apollo" / 269

41 "Take Me Home" / 277

Notes / 285

Index / 301

Illustrations follow pages 96 and 216|
Finalist for the Locus Award, Nonfiction category, 2015.
— Locus Award

|Jonathan R. Eller is a Chancellor's Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, the senior textual editor of the Institute for American Thought, and director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at IUPUI. Ray Bradbury Unbound and its predecessor Becoming Ray Bradbury were each finalists for the Locus Award in the Nonfiction category.