Search

(Colorado Springs): Gauntlet Press, 2008. 287 pages. Edited by Donn Albright. Masks was a novel Bradbury worked on in the last 1940s and early 1950s and then abandoned. He submitted a portion of the novel as part of a grant application; that draft forms the basis of this edition, with Albright editing together various fragments of surviving drafts. This collection also includes six short stories written at the same time but never before published: “Walker in the Night”, “The Drothldo”, “The Dancing Magician” (aka “Gallagher the Great”), “In the Eye of the Beholder”, “The Face of Natalie”, and “They Never Got Mad.”

This lettered edition includes an alternate draft of “Walker in the Night” and another previously unpublished story fragment, "A Study in Bronze." There are surprisingly few library holdings, with just 6 libraries listed on OCLC. The edition was limited to 552 copies, all signed by Bradbury. ISBN: 281AIB1040011.

New York: (n.p.), (n.d. but late 1940s). A flyer announcing the formation of "a new national party," perhaps even before it was given its name, the National Renaissance Party (NRP). The NRP, founded in 1949, was a small, but influential neo-Nazi group (called the "most important" in the Encyclopedia of Right-wing Extremism). The group's leader, James Madole, was a science fiction fan and occultist with a deep interest in H. P. Lovecraft and Adolph Hitler.

This call for supporters targeted a specific subgroup of either older or nerdier science fiction aficionados. STF (pronounced "stef") was short for "scientifiction," the term coined by Hugo Gernsback in 1915 to describe the genre later called science fiction. By the late 1940s, STF was seldom used, except to refer to strongly science-based works.

While the NRP would adopt a racist agenda, this flyer emphasizes the formation of "a scientific, advanced society" run by a technocratic Cultural Assembly of 100 men drawn from specialized councils devoted to specific areas of culture and the economy. Madole concludes the leaflet with "this is but a small portion of our new philosophy." The fascist credo would presumably be revealed later.

Dick Eney, in his Fancyclopedia II (1960) offered a dismissive view of Madole. "Fans were to form the nucleus of this political party ... [It was] the last original stirring of the old save-the-world-by-political-action notion among fans... [Madole] is currently (1959) Führer of the National Renaissance Party, America's only for-real Fascist movement — not counting those like the American Nazi Party, whose 'fascism' is actually racism. The NRP's Bulletin carries the masthead-line "The Only Fascist Publication in America", and Madole still howls regularly up in Yorkville, NY, where there is still an audience for this sort of kookabooism." An extremely scarce and early NRP item. ISBN: 281AIB1028161.

[Los Angeles]: [Roy A. Squires], (1976). 16 pages. "Excerpts from a play-in-progress based on the Moby Dick mythology and dedicated to Herman Melville." Limited to 400 copies. While the signature on the title page looks very convincing, it is, in fact, printed and not hand-signed.

There are two states of this book, one with 30 lines on page 9 and one with 31 lines (the remaining pages have 31 lines). The change has to do with the enjambment (look it up!) of two lines which makes it hard to determine which is the first or the preferred version, since the effect is simply different and not obviously right or wrong.

In the publisher's Bulletin newsletter for March 1976, Squires suggests that he made the change, rather than Bradbury. Squires writes, "Throughout any press-run the printer may be tempted to introduce typographic changes; few printers can be trusted invariably to resist those temptations."

It appears that the 31-line version was used for about 250 copies, including the 150 signed subscriber's copies.

It is impossible to say if Squires set page 9 with 31 lines initially and then changed his mind about the spacing and re-did it with 30 lines or if he discovered that he had set page 9 with only 30 lines and decided to change the spacing to make the page match the others.

In any case, the unsigned 30- and 31-line copies seem to have roughly equal print runs. ISBN: 281AIB1040479.

[Los Angeles]: [Roy A. Squires], (1976). 16 pages. "Excerpts from a play-in-progress based on the Moby Dick mythology and dedicated to Herman Melville." Limited to 400 copies. While the signature on the title page looks very convincing, it is, in fact, printed and not hand-signed.

There are two states of this book, one with 30 lines on page 9 and one with 31 lines (the remaining pages have 31 lines). The change has to do with the enjambment (look it up!) of two lines which makes it hard to determine which is the first or the preferred version, since the effect is simply different and not obviously right or wrong.

In the publisher's Bulletin newsletter for March 1976, Squires suggests that he made the change, rather than Bradbury. Squires writes, "Throughout any press-run the printer may be tempted to introduce typographic changes; few printers can be trusted invariably to resist those temptations."

It appears that the 31-line version was used for about 250 copies, including the 150 signed subscriber's copies.

It is impossible to say if Squires set page 9 with 31 lines initially and then changed his mind about the spacing and re-did it with 30 lines or if he discovered that he had set page 9 with only 30 lines and decided to change the spacing to make the page match the others.

In any case, the unsigned 30- and 31-line copies seem to have roughly equal print runs. ISBN: 281AIB1040479.

[Glendale, CA]: Roy A. Squires, 1976. 16 pages. "Excerpts from a play-in-progress based on the Moby Dick mythology and dedicated to Herman Melville." Limited to 400 copies. While the signature on the title page looks very convincing, it is, in fact, printed and not hand-signed.

There are two states of this book, one with 30 lines on page 9 and one with 31 lines (the remaining pages have 31 lines). The change has to do with the enjambment (look it up!) of two lines which makes it hard to determine which is the first or the preferred version, since the effect is simply different and not obviously right or wrong.

In the publisher's Bulletin newsletter for March 1976, Squires suggests that he made the change and not Bradbury. Squires writes, "Throughout any press-run the printer may be tempted to introduce typographic changes; few printers can be trusted invariably to resist those temptations."

It appears that the 31-line version was used for about 250 copies, including the 150 signed subscriber's copies.

It is impossible to say if Squires set page 9 with 31 lines initially and then changed his mind about the spacing and re-did it with 30 lines or if he discovered that he had set page 9 with only 30 lines and decided to change the spacing to make the page match the others.

In any case, the unsigned 30- and 31-line copies seem to have roughly equal print runs. ISBN: 281AIB1043205.