Fahrenheit 451 Synopsis
The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. The classic novel of a post-literate future, 'Fahrenheit 451' stands alongside Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' as a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780006546061 |
| Publication date: |
16th August 1993 |
| Author: |
Ray Bradbury |
| Publisher: |
Flamingo |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
172 pages |
| Series: |
Flamingo Modern Classic |
| Suitable For: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Ray Bradbury Press Reviews
'Another indispensible classic'
The Times
'Fahrenheit 451 is the most skilfully drawn of all science fiction's conformist hells'
Kingsley Amis
'Bradbury's is a very great and unusual talent'
Christopher Isherwood
'Ray Bradbury has a powerful and mysterious imagination which would undoubtedly earn the respect of Edgar Allen Poe'
Guardian
'It is impossible not to admire the vigour of his prose, similes and metaphors constantly cascading from his imagination'
Spectator
'As a science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury has long been streets ahead of anyone else'
Daily Telegraph
'No other writer uses language with greater originality and zest. he seems to be a American Dylan Thomas - with dsicipline'
Sunday Telegraph
About Ray Bradbury
At the age of 11, Ray Bradbury was writing stories on butcher paper. In 1938, his first story, "Hollerbochen's Dilemma," was published in Imagination! By 1943, he was writing full-time. The "Big Black and White Game" was selected as one of the Best American Short Stories in 1945. THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, a book about the colonization of Mars by Earth, established Bradbury's reputation as a talented science-fiction writer. FAHRENHEIT 451, Bradbury's best-known work, addresses issues of censorship and totalitarianism via a fictional world in which all books are forbidden.
Ray Bradbury's work has been included in the Best American Short Story collections (1946, 1948, and 1952). He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award in 1954, the Aviation-Space Writer's Association Award for best space article in an American magazine in 1967, the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, and the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. His animated film about the history of flight, Icarus Montgolfier Wright, was nominated for an Academy Award, and his teleplay of The Halloween Tree won an Emmy. Bradbury received an unusual honor when an Apollo astronaut named a crater on the moon, Dandelion Crater, after his novel of that title.
Ray Bradbury died in June 2012.
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