8vo. Original black cloth, gilt-lettered spine; dust jacket (light edgewear, cellotape repairs on verso to corners).

FIRST EDITION, one of 3,000 copies printed of Bradbury's first book. INSCRIBED BY BRADBURY on the front free endpaper: "For Howard, again, thanks, and my appreciation, from Ray Bradbury, March 21, 1953." Considered to be "his best work, from the beginning, has been his fantasy… and his best fantasy has been his horror stories. As previously mentioned, the best of the early Bradbury was collected in [this work]. No easily obtainable edition of this work, the Dubliners of American fantasy fiction, is available… Included are such short Bradbury classics of gut-chilling horror as ‘The Jar’, ‘The Crowd’, and the unforgettable ‘Small Assassin’” (Stephen King, Danse Macabre). Bleiler, Supernatural Fiction 254; Currey, p.55; Jaffery 27.