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Ray Bradbury. Dark Carnival....
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Sold on May 13, 2026 for:
$10,625.00
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Description
A SUPERB ASSOCIATION COPY - RAY BRADBURY INSCRIBES HIS FIRST BOOK TO SCIENCE FICTION GREAT A. E. VAN VOGT
Ray Bradbury. Dark Carnival. Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham
House, 1947.8vo. Publisher's black cloth, spine stamped in gilt; original pictorial dust jacket.
FIRST EDITION of the author's first book. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the front free endpaper: "For A. E. van Vogt - Because I studied and admired your stories long before I ever sold one of my own - - With my very best wishes from Ray Bradbury May 8 - 1947."
Only 3,112 copies of this "pioneering" book were printed. "The first book by Bradbury... an American author destined to exercise an enormous influence on fantasy, horror, science fiction, and American literature in general. Many of these stories had appeared in Weird Tales and other pulp magazines in the 1940s" (Joshi).
A. E. van Vogt (1912-2000) was an influential twentieth-century science fiction author and a significant contributor to the "Golden Age of Science Fiction," publishing at least 35 stories in editor John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Astounding Science-Fiction magazine. These early short stories "gave him his high reputation as a master of intricate, metaphysical Space Opera." He is credited, along with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, and to a lesser extent L. Sprague de Camp and L. Ron Hubbard, with creating the first genuinely successful period of science fiction in the United States (Clute and Nicholls, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction). The manuscript of van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle can be found as lot 45226 in the present sale; another significant association copy, a first edition of that title, inscribed by van Vogt to E. E. "Doc" Smith, can be found as lot 45227.
A REMARKABLE ASSOCIATION COPY.
Condition: Some edgewear to corners and spine ends, corners a bit bumped; other edgewear; minor soiling to covers. Dust jacket unclipped (priced "$3.00"); a few minor chips and edgewear; minor losses at front flap fold; spine just sunned; light scuffing.
References: Currey, p. 55; Jaffery 27 (mentioning this copy); Joshi, Sixty Years of Arkham House, 24; Nielsen, Arkham House Books, 25.
Provenance: A. E. van Vogt (presentation inscription). From the collection of David Aronovitz.
Auction Info
2026 May 13 The David Aronovitz Collection of Important Science Fiction and Fantasy, Part I Rare Books Signature® Auction #6336 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
May, 2026
13th
Wednesday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 6
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 383
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
25% of the successful bid per lot.
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