Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 
Ray Bradbury 
New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1953 
Vanderbilt University Collection 
Vanderbilt University Special Collections

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel about a society that bans books to limit independent thought and ideas. In an ironic twist, firemen burn books that challenge the status quo rather than put out fires. In 1967, Ballantine Books produced a Bal-Hi edition of the work to create a “safe” version of the novel for high schools in response to attempts to ban the book. Bradbury’s original version continued to be published in hardcover for a time, but the publisher eventually began publishing only the Bal-Hi edition. When Bradbury discovered the change in 1980, he demanded a restoration of all editions to the original version of his work.