Published in 1951, The Illustrated Man is a collection of short stories by science fiction author Ray Bradbury. These otherwise-unrelated stories are tied together with an overarching narrative: the story of the living tattoos on the "illustrated man" himself. Most of these stories had already been published in some form or another before The Illustrated Man, but many of these were revised for its publication.
Not including the introduction and occasional interjections from the story of the illustrated man, this compilation includes eighteen short stories ("The Veldt," "Kaleidoscope," "The Other Foot," "The Highway," "The Man," "The Long Rain," "The Rocket Man," "The Fire Balloons," "The Last Night of the World," "The Exiles," "No Particular Night or Morning," "The Fox and the Forest," "The Visitor," "The Concrete Mixer," "Marionettes, Inc.," "The City," "Zero Hour," and "The Rocket"), most of which deal with human nature, imagination, and extra-planetary wonders. Bradbury was a prolific short story writer, having written around 600 stories before his death, not including the more than thirty full-length books he published.
The Illustrated Man was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952, and its stories have been adapted many times to such media as movies (The Illustrated Man, 1969), TV (The Ray Bradbury Theater, 1985-86, 1988-92), radio (X Minus One, 1955-57), and even rock opera (The Bradbury Tattoos, 2018).
