Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The book's tagline explains the title as "'the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns": the autoignition temperature of paper. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings. The novel has been the subject of interpretations focusing on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas for change. In a 1956 radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature. In 1954, Fahrenheit 451 won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal. It later

Documented challenge/ban history: A novel about censorship that was itself quietly censored by its own publisher for over a decade — Read about this book on Wikipedia · Historical censorship record
  • 1953 — Published in full by Ballantine Books
  • 1967 — Ballantine begins selling a "Bal-Hi" school edition that quietly cuts roughly 75 passages (profanity, references to drunkenness and abortion) without labeling it as abridged
  • 1979 — Bradbury learns of the changes from a reader's letter and demands Ballantine restore the unabridged text; from 1980 onward all printings are unabridged, with Bradbury adding an afterword recounting the incident
Some printings of this book were altered: From 1967 Ballantine sold an expurgated "Bal-Hi" school edition with about 75 passages modified and words such as "hell", "damn" and "abortion" removed. From 1973 until 1979 it was the only text Ballantine printed. The original was restored in 1980.

Printings to check: Bal-Hi school edition; Ballantine, 1973–1979; Ballantine, 1967–1972. Editions that fit are flagged below.

Source: Karolides, Censored Books II (2011); Greene (2007); via Wikipedia, "Fahrenheit 451"

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