SOURCE: "Ray Bradbury and the Gothic Tradition," in Ray Bradbury, Paul Harris Publishing, 1980, pp. 165-85.

In the following examination of the stories collected in The October Country, Pierce connects Bradbury to the Gothic literary tradition.

Anyone seeking to connect a contemporary author with any established literary tradition must heed Coleridge's prefatory remarks to "Christabel" in 1798. To protect himself from charges of "servile imitation," Coleridge came right to the point:

For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold that every possible thought or image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank.

Coleridge did admit an alternative when in "Kubla Khan" he described a fountain which "flung up momently the sacred...