Dark Carnival (book)

Dark Carnival
First edition cover
Author(s)	Ray Bradbury
Cover artist	George Burrows (photo montage)
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction, fantasy, horror short stories
Publisher	Arkham House
Publication date	1947
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	313 pp
ISBN	NA

Dark Carnival is a short story collection, the debut book of Ray Bradbury, first published October 1947 by Arkham House. It has had numerous reprints.

Table of contents

"The Homecoming" "Skeleton" "The Jar" "The Lake" "The Maiden" "The Tombstone" "The Smiling People" "The Emissary" "The Traveler" "The Small Assassin" "The Crowd" "Reunion" "The Handler" "The Coffin" "Interim" "Jack-In-The-Box" "The Scythe" "Let's Play 'Poison'" "Uncle Einar" "The Wind" "The Night" "There Was An Old Woman" "The Dead Man" "The Man Upstairs" "The Night Sets" "Cistern" "The Next In Line"

Cover of the 2001 Gauntlet Press edition, with painting by Bradbury

Dark Carnival was Bradbury's first published book. 3,112 copies were printed by Arkham House, under the editorial direction of August Derleth. All but six of the stories had been first published elsewhere, although Bradbury revised some of the texts.

Fifteen of the 27 stories were reprinted in "The October Country" in 1955, some in revised form. Those stories are "The Next in Line," "Skeleton," "The Jar," "The Lake," "The Emissary," "The Small Assassin," "The Crowd," "Jack-in-the-Box," "The Scythe," "Uncle Einar," "The Wind," "The Man Upstairs," "There Was an Old Woman," "The Cistern" and "The Homecoming."

Of the remainder, eight have been reprinted in one or more collections. "The Traveler" and "The Coffin" are in "The Stories of Ray Bradbury"; "The Night" is in "The Stories of Ray Bradbury" and "The Small Assassin," a British-only collection; "Let's Play 'Poison'" is in "Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales" and "The Small Assassin"; "The Tombstone" is in "The Toynbee Convector" and "The Small Assassin"; and "The Smiling People," "The Dead Man" and "The Handler" are in "Bradbury Stories" and "The Small Assassin."

"The Night Sets," "The Maiden," "Reunion" and "Interim" have not been anthologized as of 2010.

For many years, Bradbury did not permit Dark Carnival to be reprinted, since updated versions of many of the stories were collected as The October Country. However, a limited edition of Dark Carnival, with five extra stories and a new introduction by Bradbury, was printed by Gauntlet Press in 2001.

On August 22, 2006, "The Homecoming" was published as a stand-alone short story with illustrations by Dave McKean.

References

• Jaffery, Sheldon (1989). The Arkham House Companion. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc.. pp. 25–26. ISBN 1-55742-005-X. 
• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd.. p. 31. 
• Joshi, S.T. (1999). Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. pp. 42–43. ISBN 0-87054-176-5. 
• Nielsen, Leon (2004). Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc.. p. 63. ISBN 0-7864-1785-4.