SOURCE: "When I Was in Kneepants: Ray Bradbury," in In Search of Wonder: Essays on Modern Science Fiction, Advent Publishers, pp. 108-13.

In the following essay, Knight presents a brief overview of Bradbury's early short fiction, noting that his principal subject is childhood.

Ray Bradbury began writing professionally at the floodtide of the cerebral story in science fiction—in 1940, when John Campbell was revolutionizing the field with a new respect for facts, and a wholly justified contempt for the overblown emotional values of the thirties. Bradbury, who had nothing but emotion to offer, couldn't sell Campbell.

Bradbury didn't care. He adapted his work just enough to meet the standards of the lesser markets—he filled it with the secondhand furniture of contemporary science fiction and fantasy—and went on writing what he chose.

It's curious to look back now on those first Bradbury stories and reflect how far...