They Have Not Seen the Stars

The eminence of Ray Bradbury in American literature is beyond question. For more than half a century now his short stories and novels -- and the television shows and movies drawn from them -- have delighted and inspired generations. His prose and the worlds he wove from it have captured the hearts and imaginations of millions throughout the world. But the man who brought us Montag the book-burning fireman of Fahrenheit 451, who captured lost summers in Dandelion Wine and the darkening autumnal tones of late boyhood in Something Wicked This Way Comes has always had another mistress: Poetry.

As the author himself explains in the Foreword written especially for this volume -- a Foreword that is itself classic Bradbury in its nostalgic evocation of long-gone days and people -- poetry was his first literary love and for years he has been laying at her door the flowers of his imagination that comprise the marvelous contents of this book.

It seems inconceivable that there could still be little-known treasures in the work of such a celebrated wordsmith, yet treasures there are -- buried for too long but now rediscovered and brought back to the world in this first collected edition.