Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

Steven McLean (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1950

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Science Fiction
Story Collection

Resources

The Martian Chronicles is a collection of interlinked short stories published in 1950. The Chronicles, which made Bradbury famous, and are set between 1999 and 2026, focus on human attempts to colonise the planet Mars, a project which results in the near extinction of both Earth and Mars. In contrast to earlier Mars stories like H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898), The Martian Chronicles does not portray Martians as malignant aggressors. Instead, the human “invasion” of Mars – which is analogous to the European colonialization of America – has a devastating impact on the Martian natives. Some stories were published individually prior to their inclusion in The …

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2358 words

Citation: McLean, Steven. "The Martian Chronicles". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 January 2018 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=215, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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