8vo. Illustrations by Joe Mugnaini. Original red cloth lettered in yellow (light rubbing to edges); dust jacket (spine a bit faded, small chipping to spine ends and fore-corners).

FIRST TRADE EDITION of Bradbury's dystopian novel that won the 1954 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, in Currey's state "D" binding [no priority]. Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by the hours upon hours Bradbury spent after high school in the Los Angeles Public Library working to further educate himself. Finding that popular science fiction novels were often not stocked within public libraries due to their lack of "literary merit," Bradbury began to reflect on the vulnerability of books to the censorship whims of others. He was further horrified by the Nazi book burnings and Stalin's Great Purge which saw poets and writers imprisoned or executed for their works. Currey pp.55-56.