The Martian Chronicles. Biographical Sketch and Bibliography of Ray Bradbury’s Books & Stories by William F. Nolan. Illustrations by Karel Thole. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1973. First Edition Thus. Navy cloth, title lettered in gilt to spine, with gilt illustration to upper cover, in publisher’s multi–coloured dust jacket. Gift inscription verso front free endpaper otherwise a very good copy. Signed by Ray Bradbury on half-title.

First published in 1951 this episodic novel chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. This edition with striking drawings from the Italian edition, by the Dutch illustrator and master in Sci-Fi surrealism, Carolus Adrianus Maria Thole.