Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. He has become known as one of the leading American writers of science-fiction novels and shorts stories.

At age 12, Bradbury spent four hours a day writing, and sold his first story when he was 21.

As a child, Bradbury was imaginative and prone to nightmares and frightening fantasies, which he later drew on for his writing. He became a full-time writer in 1943. The Martian Chronicles (1950), a novel about earth people colonizing Mars, is his best-known work. Bradbury has also written poetry and scripts for plays and films. He often writes about the destructive tendency in humans to use technology at the expense of morality.

Bradbury's best-known novels and short story-collections, include The Illustrated Man (1951), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and Dandelion Wine (1957).