Search results
Jan 26, 2024 · Little did these playful pals know that they would both become famous writers one day. ... Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as a painting does, or music. If you are born ...
- editor@biography.com
- Staff Editorial Team And Contributors
- Amy Irvine
- Capote was not his real surname. Truman Capote was born on 30 September 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana, originally named Truman Streckfus Persons. He changed his name to Truman Garcia Capote in 1935 – from his stepfather, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born New York businessman.
- He was primarily raised by his mother’s relatives. Capote’s parents divorced when he was very young, and he was subsequently primarily raised by his mother’s relatives in Monroeville, Alabama.
- A character in To Kill a Mockingbird was based on Capote. Truman Capote’s best friend in Monroeville was the girl-next-door, Nelle Harper Lee, who later based the precocious character of Dill Harris on Capote in her famous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
- His breakthrough came with his debut novel. After her subsequent marriage to Joe Capote, Capote’s mother (who later committed suicide) brought him to New York City.
Jan 24, 2024 · 3. Stephen King: Writing as a Daily Job. Stephen King famously stated, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”. King’s commitment to writing daily and his belief in the importance of regularity underscore the idea that writing is a craft that requires constant effort.
Mar 18, 2020 · He's been popular for 400 years. Shakespeare is undoubtedly the world’s most influential poet and dramatist. In a poem titled "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare," Ben Jonson noted, "He was not of an age, but for all time!" Now, four centuries later, Jonson’s words still ring true.
- Lee Jamieson
- Overview
- Early life
- First short stories
- Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and scripts
- Later work and awards
Ray Bradbury is an American author known for his highly imaginative short stories and novels that blend a poetic style, nostalgia for childhood, social criticism, and an awareness of the hazards of runaway technology. Among his best known works are Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and The Martian Chronicles.
Which novel is considered Ray Bradbury's greatest work?
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) is regarded as Ray Bradbury’s greatest work. The novel is about a future society where books are forbidden, and it has been acclaimed for its anti-censorship themes and its defense of literature against the encroachment of electronic media.
What was Ray Bradbury's last novel?
Ray Bradbury's final novel was Farewell Summer (2006), a sequel to one of his most well-known works, the autobiographical novel Dandelion Wine (1957).
Was Ray Bradbury awarded a Pulitzer Prize?
As a child, Bradbury loved horror films such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925); the books of L. Frank Baum and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. Bradbury often told of an encounter with a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932 as a notable influence. Wreathed in static electricity, Mr. Electrico touched the young Bradbury on the nose and said, “Live forever!” The next day, Bradbury returned to the carnival to ask Mr. Electrico’s advice on a magic trick. After Mr. Electrico introduced him to the other performers in the carnival, he told Bradbury that he was a reincarnation of his best friend who died in World War I. Bradbury later wrote, “a few days later I began to write, full-time. I have written every single day of my life since that day.”
Britannica Quiz
Bradbury’s family moved to Los Angeles in 1934. In 1937 Bradbury joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, where he received encouragement from young writers such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Heinlein, and Leigh Brackett, who met weekly with him. Bradbury published his first short story, “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma” (1938), in the league’s “fanzine,” Imagination! He published his own fanzine, Futuria Fantasia, in 1939. That same year Bradbury traveled to the first World Science Fiction convention, in New York City, where he met many of the genre’s editors. He made his first sale to a professional science fiction magazine in 1941, when his short story “Pendulum” (written with Henry Hasse) was published in Super Science Stories. Many of Bradbury’s earliest stories, with their elements of fantasy and horror, were published in Weird Tales. Most of these stories were collected in his first book of short stories, Dark Carnival (1947). Bradbury’s style, with its rich use of metaphors and similes, stood out from the more utilitarian work that dominated pulp magazine writing.
In the mid-1940s Bradbury’s stories started to appear in major magazines such as The American Mercury, Harper’s, and McCall’s, and he was unusual in publishing both in pulp magazines such as Planet Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories and “slicks” (so-called because of their high-quality paper) such as The New Yorker and Collier’s without leaving behind the genres he loved. The Martian Chronicles (1950), a series of short stories, depicts Earth’s colonization of Mars, which leads to the extinction of an idyllic Martian civilization. However, in the face of an oncoming nuclear war, many of the settlers return to Earth, and after Earth’s destruction, a few surviving humans return to Mars to become the new Martians. The short-story collection The Illustrated Man (1951) included one of his most famous stories, “The Veldt,” in which a mother and father are concerned about the effect their house’s simulation of lions on the African veldt is having on their children.
Bradbury’s next novel, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), is regarded as his greatest work. In a future society where books are forbidden, Guy Montag, a “fireman” whose job is the burning of books, takes a book and is seduced by reading. Fahrenheit 451 has been acclaimed for its anti-censorship themes and its defense of literature against the encroachment of electronic media. An acclaimed film adaptation was released in 1966.
The collection The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) contained “The Fog Horn” (loosely adapted for film as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms [1953]), about two lighthouse keepers’ terrifying encounter with a sea monster; the title story, about a rocket’s dangerous journey to scoop up a piece of the Sun; and “A Sound of Thunder,” about a safari back to the Mesozoic to hunt a Tyrannosaurus. In 1954 Bradbury spent six months in Ireland with director John Huston working on the screenplay for the film Moby Dick (1956), an experience Bradbury later fictionalized in his novel Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). After the release of Moby Dick, Bradbury was in demand as a screenwriter in Hollywood and wrote scripts for Playhouse 90, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone.
Are you a student? Get Britannica Premium for only 24.95 - a 67% discount!
Learn More
In the 1970s Bradbury no longer wrote short fiction at his previous pace, turning his energy to poetry and drama. Earlier in his career he had sold several mystery short stories, and he returned to the genre with Death Is a Lonely Business (1985), an homage to the detective stories of writers such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett mixed with an autobiographical setting of 1949 Venice, California, where Bradbury lived at the time. Two sequels, A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990) and Let’s All Kill Constance (2002), mined his experiences in 1950s and ’60s Hollywood. His final novel, Farewell Summer (2006), was a sequel to Dandelion Wine. He adapted 59 of his short stories for the television series The Ray Bradbury Theatre (1985–92).
Bradbury was often considered a science fiction author, but he said that his only science fiction book was Fahrenheit 451. Strictly speaking, much of his work was fantasy, horror, or mysteries. He said, “I use a scientific idea as a platform to leap into the air and never come back.” He received many honours for his work including an Emmy for his animated adaptation of The Halloween Tree (1994) and the National Medal of Arts (2004). In 2007 the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Bradbury a Special Citation for his distinguished career.
May 17, 2024 · How did J.K. Rowling become famous? J.K. Rowling started writing about Harry Potter after graduating from the University of Exeter. After a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, Rowling settled in Edinburgh and lived on public assistance between stints as a French teacher and writing.
May 1, 2024 · How did Ida B. Wells-Barnett become famous? Ida B. Wells-Barnett first grew to prominence by leading a campaign against lynching , first by writing newspaper columns but later through delivering lectures and organizing anti-lynching societies.
