The Bradbury artifacts gifted in 2013 include his original office furniture and equipment, as well as three of his typewriters used over a forty-year period; many significant national and international awards, mementoes, and other artifacts from his personal office; significant art by noted illustrators, by various writers, Hollywood figures, and by NASA artists; hundreds of his author’s copies of the major market magazines where his work was published; and a large collection of Bradbury publications including first editions, foreign language editions, and rare editions, many signed by Bradbury. Below is an outline of those holdings that make up the Center's "Ray Bradbury Musuem."
An eclectic mix of Bradbury’s mementos, awards, signed photographs from famous figures, childhood scrapbooks, gifts from Hollywood and government organizations, space program awards, and many more artifacts from a long and busy life.
Highlights:
Bradbury’s poetic and evocative fiction inspired generations of visual artists, and the Center is home to many of the paintings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, and even sculptures gifted to Bradbury by his inspired professional artists, readers, and fans. The Center also houses some of Bradbury’s own sketches and high-resolution facsimiles of his own art.
Highlights:
All those volumes from the shelves of Bradbury’s Los Angeles home office, which surrounded and stimulated Bradbury throughout the majority of his career.
Highlights:
Bradbury’s author’s stock of his own books, including many signed and limited special editions and hundreds of foreign language editions from many lands.
Highlights:
The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies curates one of the larger single-author collections in the United States. The papers and books gifted in 2013 include more than 100,000 pages of published and unpublished literary works stored in thirty-one of the author’s filing cabinets; forty years of his personal and professional correspondence (an additional 10,000 pages); author’s copies of his books, including extensive foreign language editions, and his working library (a combined 4000 volumes). The broader collection of papers includes manuscripts, typescripts, screenplay and teleplay drafts, story concepts, photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks with original drawings and printed comic strips from his youth, and ephemera he collected documenting his travels. Yet another 10,000 pages of papers and writings that never made it into his filing cabinets have also now been sorted into rough categories in preparation for preservation and accessioning efforts. Below is an outline of those holdings that make up the Center's "Ray Bradbury Archive."
The Center is home to research copies of Bradbury’s published works, including successive editions and the various reprintings and issues within each edition. This extensive holding also includes many foreign editions of Bradbury’s works, representing over twenty international languages. The Center updates its holdings as new editions are released.
Highlights:
Including manuscripts, typescripts, teleplays, screenplays, and correspondence, the archive of Bradbury’s papers (approximately 110,000 pages) makes up the bulk of the Center’s archival collections.
Highlights:
The Center’s copies of Bradbury’s audiovisual interviews and public appearances offer valuable insights into the author’s personal and creative life. Many of these analog audio and video artifacts have been digitized. The Center maintains the capability to view and listen to both the analog and digital versions on site.
Highlights:
The films, television shows, and stage plays adapted by Bradbury and other writers from Bradbury works. Many formats are represented, including film production reels, Betamax, VHS, DVD, and BlueRay. The film and analog original recordings are in the process of being digitized through an Indiana University initiative. Playback equipment available.
Highlights:
The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies' archives include a large research/reference collection of genre publications, including novels and short story collections, pulp genre magazines, anthologies, and iconographic studies. Together, these collections form a large reference library dedicated to the broader study of science, horror, fantasy, and crime fiction. Below is an outline of this library.
A wide range of titles in the traditions of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and crime fiction by nineteenth and twentieth-century American, British, and Continental authors.
Highlights:
Scholarly monographs and essay collections focused on the genres in which Ray Bradbury wrote, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and crime fiction; an invaluable resource for the student of genre fiction.
Highlights:
Includes genre-defining and genre-crossing films and television shows in the tradition of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. The bulk of the collection is made up of DVDs, but VHS, Betamax, and reel formats also represented. Playback equipment available.
Highlights:
One of the largest repositories for pulp magazines in the Midwest, the pulp and genre collection at the CRBS preserves the legacy of detective, Western, weird, fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Covers the years between 1914 and the 1990s. Of the approximately 1,850 magazines in the collection, 1,600 were Bradbury’s personal copies.
Highlights:
A selection of high-quality, bound reproductions of the paintings, illustrations, and images from science fiction, fantasy, and horror visual artists.
Highlights:
