Ray Bradbury was born today in 1920. He was the author of what I think was one of the most prescient books of the 20th Century. And it started as a short story written on a hired typewriter!

This is the story Fahrenheit 451...

Ray Bradbury started writing stories at the age of 11. Influenced by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne he strongly identified with Verne's belief that "in a very strange world... we can triumph by behaving morally."

Bradbury honed his writing skills in the world of pulp magazines. His first story, "Hollerbochen's Dilemma," was published in 1938 when he was 18. A year later he published his own sci-fi magazine, Futuria Fantasia.

Ray Bradbury became a full-time writer in 1944. "Dark Carnival" - a collection of hid short stories - was published by Arkham House in 1947. Truman Capote spotted Bradbury's potential early on, as did Christopher Isherwood.

Bradbury had learnt his craft from voracious reading and understood the value of books. "Libraries raised me" he later said. "I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money."

As a young writer Ray Bradbury was acutely aware of the vulnerability of books to censure and destruction: Nazi book-burnings, Stalin's purge of writers and the McCarthy-era blacklisting of Hollywood writers formed the background to his novel Fahrenheit 451.

The concept of Farenheit 451 developed gradually: in 1947 Bradbury wrote Bright Phoenix, a story of a community censor who burns questionable books in the local library, until the librarian points out he can't burn the ideas that created them.

Bradbury's later short story "The Pedestrian" depicts a dystopian television-centered world in 2053. He then developed the idea of a wilfully illiterate world that burns books into a novella called "The Fireman."

Bradbury began writing "The Fireman" in 1950 on a pay-by-the-hour typewriter in the UCLA library. It was later published in Galaxy magazine in 1951.

Ian Ballantine asked Bradbury to develop The Fireman into a full novel. Against the backdrop of McCarthyism - when questionable books were removed from public libraries - Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953.

Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future America where books are outlawed. Guy Montag is a fireman employed to burn the possessions of those who read these outlawed books.

In Farenheit 451 books are burnt because they always offend some group in society. Burning books also helps make people feel more equal: no "intellectuals" looking down on others, nobody feeling their opinions are being questioned, peace of mind for all.

As well as the theme of censorship Fahrenheit 451 looks at the effect of mass media on the world: books no longer fit the fast pace of modern life, they confuse and upset people. Instead television acts as a social glue to help everyone feel content.

In the novel Guy Montag eventually rejects his role as a fireman who protects society's serenity by incinerating books. His superiors then force him to burn his own house down after they discover he is collecting confiscated books. He kills his boss and flees.

Fahrenheit 451 ends with Montag and the other reading rebels watching as their city is destroyed by atomic bombs. They decide to start again, using the books they have memories as inspiration: a Phoenix from the ashes.

Fahrenheit 451's title comes from the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns. Apparently Bradbury called his local fire station to ask what temperature this was, only to be put on hold while a fireman went and burned a book to find out.

Ironically Ballantine censored parts of Fahrenheit 451 in 1967 to make it more acceptable to high school students. It was also banned in some schools in the late 1980s for vulgarity, particularly the scenes where a Bible is burnt.

Fahrenheit 451 was filmed in 1966 by François Truffaut, and was made into a BBC radio play in 1982. A HBO TV adaption was also launched in 2018 starring Michael B. Jordan.

Unlike Orwell's 1984, it is the people rather than the state who are the censors in Fahrenheit 451. Due to their constant desire for a simplistic, positive world that offends no one the written word must be suppressed and destroyed.

Ray Bradbury once said "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Fahrenheit 451 is a reminder that the written word cannot be forgotten, even if it is destroyed. Happy birthday Ray!

More stories another time...