The Illustrated Man

Ray Bradbury’s remarkable collection of stories – all told on the skin of a man. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.

If El Greco had painted miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed, with his sulphurous colour and exquisite human anatomy, perhaps he might have used this man’s body for his art… Yet the Illustrated Man has tried to burn the illustrations off. He’s tried sandpaper, acid, a knife. Because, as the sun sets, the pictures glow like charcoals, like scattered gems. They quiver and come to life. Tiny pink hands gesture, tiny mouths flicker as the figures enact their stories – voices rise, small and muted, predicting the future. Here are sixteen tales: sixteen illustrations… the seventeenth is your own future told on the skin of the Illustrated Man.