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Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)
Encyclopedia
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962
novel
by Ray Bradbury
. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival
that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark" who bears a tattoo
for each person who, lured by the offer to live out his secret fantasies, has become bound in service to the carnival. Mr. Dark's malevolent presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, who harbors his own secret desire to regain his youth.
The novel combines elements of fantasy
and horror
, analyzing the conflicting natures of good and evil, and on how they come into play between the characters and the carnival. Unlike many of Bradbury's other works, including the tangentially related Dandelion Wine
, which is a collection of loosely related short stories
, Something Wicked This Way Comes is a full-length novel.
magician named Mr. Electrico who commanded him to "Live forever!" The 12-year-old Bradbury, intrigued at the concept of eternal life, revisited Mr. Electrico, who spurred his passion for life by heralding him as the reincarnation
of a friend lost in World War I
. After that memorable day, Bradbury began writing nonstop.
The novel originated in 1955 when Bradbury suggested to his friend Gene Kelly
that they collaborate on a movie for Kelly to direct. He offered his 1948 short story "The Black Ferris" as an 80-page outline treatment. When Kelly was unable to obtain financial backing for the movie, Bradbury expanded the treatment to novel length. He converted the benign presence of Mr. Electrico into a more sinister one and incorporated several members he met at the same carnival with Mr. Electrico, including the Illustrated Man and the Skeleton Man.
The novel's title was quoted directly from William Shakespeare
's Macbeth
: "By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this way comes."
Something Wicked This Way Comes can be interpreted as an autumn sequel to the summer of Bradbury's Dandelion Wine
. The two works are set in the fictitious Green Town (based on Bradbury's hometown, Waukegan, Illinois
), but have different tones, with Something Wicked having an emphasis on the more serious side of the transition from childhood to adulthood. While none of the characters in Dandelion Wine make an appearance in Something Wicked, William Halloway and Jim Nightshade can be viewed as one-year older representations of Dandelion Wines Douglas Spaulding and John Huff, respectively. These two novels, coupled with Bradbury's official 2006 sequel to Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer
, make up the Green Town trilogy. A 2008 collection of short stories Summer Morning, Summer Night
are also set in Green Town.
The boys run out to watch the carnival arrive at three in the morning, and they run home after seeing the tents get set up mysteriously. Mr. Halloway talks about this time of night as "soul's midnight", when men are closest to death, locked in the depths of despair. The boys go the next day to explore the carnival and they help their seventh grade teacher, Miss Foley, who is dazed after visiting the Mirror Maze. Later in the day, Jim goes into the maze and Will has to pull him out. Jim insists on coming back that night, and Will agrees, but then they bump into the lightning-rod salesman's bag and they realize that they must stay to learn what has happened to the man. Finally, after searching all of the rides, they go up to a carousel that is supposedly broken. A huge man grabs Will and Jim and tells them that the merry-go-round is broken. Another man tells him to put them down, introduces himself as Mr. Dark and tells them the other man's name is Mr. Cooger. Mr. Dark is the Illustrated Man, covered in tattoos, and he pays attention only to Jim, who is enthralled by what he sees. Mr. Dark tells them to come back the next day and the boys run off but then hide and wait. What they see is unbelievable. Mr. Cooger rides backwards on the carousel (while the music plays backwards), and when he steps off of it, he is twelve years old.
They follow Mr. Cooger to Miss Foley's house, where he pretends to be her nephew who got lost earlier at the carnival. Jim tries to meet up with Mr. Cooger because he wants to ride the carousel, but Will stops him and he takes off toward the carnival. When Will reaches the carnival Mr. Cooger is on the carousel, growing older, and Jim is about to join him. Will knocks the switch on the carousel and it flies out of control, spinning rapidly forward. Mr. Cooger ages over 100 years before the carousel stops, and Jim and Will take off. They return with the police, but Mr. Cooger is nowhere to be found. Inside the tents he is set up as a new act, Mr. Electrico, a man they run electricity through. Mr. Dark tells the boys to come back to the carnival the next day. Will tries to keep his father out of the situation, promising him that he will tell all soon. The night the Dust Witch comes in her balloon to find Jim and Will, but Will outsmarts her and destroys her balloon.
The next day the boys see a young girl crying and realize after talking to her that it is Miss Foley. They go to her house but when they come back their path is blocked by a parade. The carnival is out searching the streets for them. They hide and the little girl is gone. Will's father sees them hiding in an iron grille in the sidewalk and the boys convince him to keep quiet because the Illustrated Man comes to talk to him. Will's father pretends not to know the two boys whose faces are tattooed on the man's hand, and then when the Witch comes and begins to sense the boys' presence he blows cigar smoke at her, choking her and forcing her to leave. Mr. Dark asks Charles Halloway for his name, and Will's father tells him where he works and who he is. Later that night Will and Jim meet Mr. Halloway at the library, where he has done research and found out some things about the carnival. He tells them that their best weapon is love, but they are not sure how to fight. Then Mr. Dark shows up and the boys hide. He finds them and then crushes Charles Halloway's hand when the man tries to fight him. The Dust Witch casts spells on the boys to make them easy to handle and goes to stop Mr. Halloway's heart. Just before he is about to die, Charles Halloway looks at the Witch and begins to laugh hysterically, and his laughter wounds her deeply and drives her away. He goes to the carnival to get the boys.
At the carnival Charles Halloway outsmarts Mr. Dark, finds his son, kills the Witch, and destroys the Mirror Maze in a matter of minutes, all through the use of laughter and happiness. Then he and Will search for Jim. Mr. Cooger turns to dust and blows away before he can be saved at the carousel, and Jim moves towards the merry-go-round. Jim starts to ride and Will tries to stop him. They both end up going for a ride before Will jumps off and rips Jim away from the machine. Jim falls into a stupor, close to death. A child comes begging them to help him, but Mr. Halloway recognizes the boy as Mr. Dark. He holds the boy tight and kills him with affection, because Mr. Dark cannot survive in such close contact with someone good. The carnival falls apart as Will tries to revive Jim. They save Jim by singing and dancing and laughing; their happiness brings him back from the edge of death.
James "Jim" Nightshade
Charles Halloway
G. M. Dark
J. C. Cooger
The Dust Witch
Miss Foley
The Skeleton
Tom Fury/Dwarf
of the struggle between good and evil
, with the human characters Will, Jim, and Charles on the side of morality, and Mr. Dark and his carnival on the side of sin and temptation
. As in many other fictional works revolving around the same concept, good prevails in the end, not with supernatural or physical powers, but with purity of heart. Jim represents good that is always on the verge of giving into temptation, while Will is the part of us that relentlessly resists giving in.
As in Dandelion Wine
, Bradbury infuses the novel with nostalgia
for his childhood. However, Dandelion Wine better represents the idyllic days, whereas Something Wicked explores the darker nights, combining folk-tale characters with supernatural elements to relate otherwise fantastical and gothic
-themed motifs to American daily life.
Charles, however, quickly sees that a ride on the carousel can have unforeseen circumstances, because changing age instantly would not change the mind.
"If I made you twenty-five tomorrow, Jim, your thoughts would still be boy thoughts, and it'd show! Or if they turned me into a boy of ten this instant, my brain would still be fifty and that boy would act funnier and older and weirder than any boy ever."
Because of this, a person who rode the carousel would be reformed only physically, with the same sins and emotions contained inside. Moreover, his new physical form, created unnaturally, would alienate him from his family and peers, leaving him with nowhere to turn to except for the carnival.
Charles best personifies this theme; while he is middle-aged in body, he is still youthful in mind and spirit. At first, he sees the two conflicting personas within him as irreconcilable and longs to be physically young too, but his active participation in toppling the carnival proves to him that mental fitness and perception of one's age is more important than physical health.
Ironically, Will and Jim can be said to have aged prematurely in the novel; the horrors of the carnival force them to grow up fast to be able to deal with its tricks on a knowledgeable level. Furthermore, Will and Jim do take a brief ride on the carousel before Will pulls Jim off, and they are never shown reversing this process before Charles destroys its machinations. Thus, it can be stated that they in fact grow up slightly. In this case, though, Will and Jim have also matured emotionally too, having had their first encounter with evil. This enables them to grow more proportionally in both physical and emotional status.
s of aging, death, and loneliness which everyone has or relates to.
Charles Halloway is the character who learns the most about this; he initially views death as unpleasant and it thus becomes a sinister force to him that the Mirror Maze magnifies. However, Will's words of love help him to see that age does not matter if one focuses instead on the knowledge and affections gained with it, and as his fear vanishes, so does the Mirror Maze. He also is able to defeat the Dust Witch once he realizes that she does not have ultimate control over him. With his belief in her powers gone, he turns the tables on the Witch by instilling the same fear in her of his smile that he used to have of her magic.
es are portrayed as the base of human malice and unhappiness because they blind people to the blessings of life with an unattainable dream. The novel's main example of this is Miss Foley's seduction by Cooger's promise of youth that causes her to fail to see his deception as her "nephew," and lose her rightful place in society.
It is implied that the counter force against this is acceptance of one's faults and an enthusiastic pursuit of the everyday joys of life, signified by Charles' simultaneous running with Jim and Will at the end of the novel. The fact that he is nearly forty years older than them pales in comparison to the pleasure he gains from simple human companionship.
The magazine Science Fiction Weekly published a review of the novel; an excerpt of it follows:
Science Fiction Crowsnest, another science fiction magazine reviewed it with high praise, referring to it as a "Masterwork" with "a suitably fantastic and scary plot around colourful description...with hidden meanings, mysteries and symbols adding to the layers of tension."
The Denver Rocky Mountain News
said in 1999, "If rational beings had created the 100 best books of the century list, this one would surely have been on it."
Something Wicked has influenced several fantasy and horror authors, the most prominent being Stephen King
. The motif of ordinary people up against sinister, supernatural forces appears in many of King's works, including It
and Dreamcatcher
. King also discusses the Bradbury novel quite extensively in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre
.
film Something Wicked This Way Comes, with Bradbury as the screenwriter. In a later interview, Bradbury said that he considered the film one of the better adaptations of his works.
Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company also debuted a play based on the novel in Los Angeles
on October 1, 2003, directed by Alan Neal Hubbs, also associated with the 1970 stage adaptation of Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles
. The main cast was Grady Hutt as Will Halloway, J. Skylar Testa as Jim Nightshade, Jay Gerber as Charles Halloway, and Mark Aaron as Mr. Dark.
Critics gave the play generally favorable reviews, stating that it captured the lyricism and dark tone of the novel. They also praised its special effects, which included a carousel constructed of mirrors with actors as the horses, and Jay Gerber as Charles Halloway. Sharon Perlmutter of Talkin' Broadway, however, said that Hutt and Tests gave bland performances as the two lead characters.
Something Wicked This Way Comes was produced as a full-cast radio play by the Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air, and released by Blackstone Audio on October 1, 2007. Ray Bradbury wrote the script, modified for audio from his stage play. The cast includes Jerry Robbins as Mr. Halloway, J.T. Turner as Mr. Dark, Anastas Varinos as Will Halloway, and Matthew Scott Robertson as Jim Nightshade. This production was directed by Nancy Curran Willis, with music by Jeffrey Gage and post-production
by Chris Snyder.
Something Wicked This Way Comes was produced as a radio play for the BBC Radio 4
Saturday Play series and was broadcast on 29 October 2011. The production was adapted for radio by Diana Griffths and produced/directed by Pauline Harris with music by David Paul Jones and sound by Paul Cargill. The cast included Theo Gregory as Will, Josef Lindsay as Jim, Henry Goodman
as Charles Halloway, Gerard McDermott as Mr. Coogar/The Lightening Rod Salesman and Kenneth Cranham
as Mr. Dark.
as an acknowledgment of Bradbury's contribution to his genre, and even echoes the beginning scene of Something Wicked by referring to a lightning-rod salesman in a chapter titled "Dark Carnival" after another Bradbury work. Needful Things
and 'Salem's Lot also contain references and elements from the novel.
An adaption of Something Wicked This Way Comes was the main feature of a Halloween
-themed The Simpsons comic.
The TV show South Park
parodied
the novel in the episode "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes
" with a similar plot about a department store luring townsfolk with its super-low prices.
The award winning British TV comedy series The League of Gentlemen
, known for its many popular horror references, features the Pandemonium Carnival of Papa Lazarou
.
Steampunk Pioneers Vernian Process
released "Something Wicked (that way went)" in 2011, a song inspired by the novel.
American progressive metal
band Redemption
have a song on their 2003-released self-titled debut album
based on the book.
Gothic horror band Nox Arcana
released an album in 2006 entitled Carnival of Lost Souls
, which is loosely based on the story.
Something Wicked is a 1993 album by the thrash metal band Nuclear Assault
. The title song uses the full reference from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" as part of the chorus.
The 1994 concept album The Last Temptation by shock rocker Alice Cooper
, as well as the accompanying four-part comic series by Neil Gaiman
, borrow several elements from the novel, something that is referenced by Gaiman as the novel is being studied in Steven's class at school in the days just before Halloween.
The British jazz
/hip-hop band The Herbaliser
released a 2002 album with the same title and a similar cover.
The experimental music artist "Deathwatch Beetle Repairman" has an instrumental song entitled "The Carny of Mr. Dark".
Season 4 of NBC's Heroes
stars Robert Knepper
as "Samuel" who has a similar persona as G.M. Dark and uses Lydia (the tattooed lady) and her tattoos to gain information about others.
Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson
, reputedly a fan of Bradbury's, titled his 1967 debut album Pandemonium Shadow Show
after the carnival in this novel.
The song "The Dark Ride" from German power metal
band Helloween
's album of the same name
is inspired by the novel.
Shock rocker Wednesday 13
included a song with the same title on their 2011 album Calling All Corpses.
1962 in literature
The year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 7 - In an article in the New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist."...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival
Traveling carnival
A traveling carnival is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, animal acts or sideshow curiosities. A traveling carnival is not set up at a permanent location, like an amusement park, but is moved from...
that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark" who bears a tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
for each person who, lured by the offer to live out his secret fantasies, has become bound in service to the carnival. Mr. Dark's malevolent presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, who harbors his own secret desire to regain his youth.
The novel combines elements of fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
and horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, analyzing the conflicting natures of good and evil, and on how they come into play between the characters and the carnival. Unlike many of Bradbury's other works, including the tangentially related Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
, which is a collection of loosely related short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, Something Wicked This Way Comes is a full-length novel.
Background and origins
One of the events in Ray Bradbury's childhood that inspired him to become a writer was an encounter with a carnivalCarnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
magician named Mr. Electrico who commanded him to "Live forever!" The 12-year-old Bradbury, intrigued at the concept of eternal life, revisited Mr. Electrico, who spurred his passion for life by heralding him as the reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of a friend lost in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. After that memorable day, Bradbury began writing nonstop.
The novel originated in 1955 when Bradbury suggested to his friend Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
that they collaborate on a movie for Kelly to direct. He offered his 1948 short story "The Black Ferris" as an 80-page outline treatment. When Kelly was unable to obtain financial backing for the movie, Bradbury expanded the treatment to novel length. He converted the benign presence of Mr. Electrico into a more sinister one and incorporated several members he met at the same carnival with Mr. Electrico, including the Illustrated Man and the Skeleton Man.
The novel's title was quoted directly from William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
: "By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this way comes."
Something Wicked This Way Comes can be interpreted as an autumn sequel to the summer of Bradbury's Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
. The two works are set in the fictitious Green Town (based on Bradbury's hometown, Waukegan, Illinois
Waukegan, Illinois
Waukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
), but have different tones, with Something Wicked having an emphasis on the more serious side of the transition from childhood to adulthood. While none of the characters in Dandelion Wine make an appearance in Something Wicked, William Halloway and Jim Nightshade can be viewed as one-year older representations of Dandelion Wines Douglas Spaulding and John Huff, respectively. These two novels, coupled with Bradbury's official 2006 sequel to Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer
Farewell Summer
Farewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
, make up the Green Town trilogy. A 2008 collection of short stories Summer Morning, Summer Night
Summer Morning, Summer Night
Summer Morning, Summer Night is a 2008 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury edited by Donn Albright and Jon Eller. All the stories save one are set in Green Town, Illinois, Bradbury's name for his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois. Several of the stories feature some of the characters from...
are also set in Green Town.
Plot summary
The novel opens on an overcast October 23. Two friends, William "Will" Halloway and Jim Nightshade, both on the verge of their fourteenth birthdays, encounter a strange lightning rod salesman who claims that a storm is coming their way. Throughout that same night, Will and Jim meet up with townsfolk who also sense something in the air; the barber says that the air smells of cotton candy. Among the townspeople is Will's 54-year-old father, Charles Halloway (who works in the local library, and who broods philosophically about his position in life, including on how he misses being young like his son). Both Charles Halloway and the boys learn about the carnival that is to start the next day. Will's father sees a sign in a store window that advertises Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, and Jim and Will find a similar handbill in the street. The boys are excited that a carnival has come so late in the year, but Charles Halloway has a bad feeling about it.The boys run out to watch the carnival arrive at three in the morning, and they run home after seeing the tents get set up mysteriously. Mr. Halloway talks about this time of night as "soul's midnight", when men are closest to death, locked in the depths of despair. The boys go the next day to explore the carnival and they help their seventh grade teacher, Miss Foley, who is dazed after visiting the Mirror Maze. Later in the day, Jim goes into the maze and Will has to pull him out. Jim insists on coming back that night, and Will agrees, but then they bump into the lightning-rod salesman's bag and they realize that they must stay to learn what has happened to the man. Finally, after searching all of the rides, they go up to a carousel that is supposedly broken. A huge man grabs Will and Jim and tells them that the merry-go-round is broken. Another man tells him to put them down, introduces himself as Mr. Dark and tells them the other man's name is Mr. Cooger. Mr. Dark is the Illustrated Man, covered in tattoos, and he pays attention only to Jim, who is enthralled by what he sees. Mr. Dark tells them to come back the next day and the boys run off but then hide and wait. What they see is unbelievable. Mr. Cooger rides backwards on the carousel (while the music plays backwards), and when he steps off of it, he is twelve years old.
They follow Mr. Cooger to Miss Foley's house, where he pretends to be her nephew who got lost earlier at the carnival. Jim tries to meet up with Mr. Cooger because he wants to ride the carousel, but Will stops him and he takes off toward the carnival. When Will reaches the carnival Mr. Cooger is on the carousel, growing older, and Jim is about to join him. Will knocks the switch on the carousel and it flies out of control, spinning rapidly forward. Mr. Cooger ages over 100 years before the carousel stops, and Jim and Will take off. They return with the police, but Mr. Cooger is nowhere to be found. Inside the tents he is set up as a new act, Mr. Electrico, a man they run electricity through. Mr. Dark tells the boys to come back to the carnival the next day. Will tries to keep his father out of the situation, promising him that he will tell all soon. The night the Dust Witch comes in her balloon to find Jim and Will, but Will outsmarts her and destroys her balloon.
The next day the boys see a young girl crying and realize after talking to her that it is Miss Foley. They go to her house but when they come back their path is blocked by a parade. The carnival is out searching the streets for them. They hide and the little girl is gone. Will's father sees them hiding in an iron grille in the sidewalk and the boys convince him to keep quiet because the Illustrated Man comes to talk to him. Will's father pretends not to know the two boys whose faces are tattooed on the man's hand, and then when the Witch comes and begins to sense the boys' presence he blows cigar smoke at her, choking her and forcing her to leave. Mr. Dark asks Charles Halloway for his name, and Will's father tells him where he works and who he is. Later that night Will and Jim meet Mr. Halloway at the library, where he has done research and found out some things about the carnival. He tells them that their best weapon is love, but they are not sure how to fight. Then Mr. Dark shows up and the boys hide. He finds them and then crushes Charles Halloway's hand when the man tries to fight him. The Dust Witch casts spells on the boys to make them easy to handle and goes to stop Mr. Halloway's heart. Just before he is about to die, Charles Halloway looks at the Witch and begins to laugh hysterically, and his laughter wounds her deeply and drives her away. He goes to the carnival to get the boys.
At the carnival Charles Halloway outsmarts Mr. Dark, finds his son, kills the Witch, and destroys the Mirror Maze in a matter of minutes, all through the use of laughter and happiness. Then he and Will search for Jim. Mr. Cooger turns to dust and blows away before he can be saved at the carousel, and Jim moves towards the merry-go-round. Jim starts to ride and Will tries to stop him. They both end up going for a ride before Will jumps off and rips Jim away from the machine. Jim falls into a stupor, close to death. A child comes begging them to help him, but Mr. Halloway recognizes the boy as Mr. Dark. He holds the boy tight and kills him with affection, because Mr. Dark cannot survive in such close contact with someone good. The carnival falls apart as Will tries to revive Jim. They save Jim by singing and dancing and laughing; their happiness brings him back from the edge of death.
Characters
William "Will" Halloway- Born one minute before midnight on October 30, Will is described as having done "only six years of staring." (He is described as having white-blonde hair with eyes "as clear as summer rain".) Will is naturally obedient and wary of getting involved in difficult situations; nonetheless, he takes on an active role in fighting the carnival's evil power.
James "Jim" Nightshade
- Born one minute after midnight on October 31, Jim is brooding and brash, acting as a foilFoil (literature)In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of another character....
for Will's cautiousness and practicality. (He is described as having wild and tangled chestnut brown hair and eyes the color of green grass.) Jim yearns to become older, which makes him vulnerable to the carnival's temptations, but is ultimately saved by his friendship with Will.
Charles Halloway
- A middle-aged man who starts out in the novel as a quiet and unhappy man, not very close to his son, but who eventually gains self-awareness and faith while up against the carnival (defeating the "Dust Witch" and "Jed/Mr. Dark"). He becomes a fighter in his own right by the end of the novel, along with gaining the admiration, love, and friendship of his son.
G. M. Dark
- A sinister man who bears tattoos all over his body, one for each person successfully tempted into joining the carnival. Mr. Dark initially holds sway over the other main characters, but his power weakens when Charles uses positive emotions against him, something he cannot comprehend or withstand. Dark's background is a mystery, although he refers to being raised in a strict religious upbringing. When asked if he reads the Bible, he replies "I've had every page, line and word read at me, sir!". Another, perhaps more fitting interpretation of the Bible sequence, given his dismissive nature to Charles and his array of books, would be that he is mocking Charles' belief that the Bible would have any sort of effect in either repelling or hurting him. This would indicate that Dark is not a devil or demon in the Christian sense of the term.
J. C. Cooger
- Dark's partner in running the carnival, Mr. Cooger is a fierce, red-headed man who is first seen repairing the carousel. He catches and terrifies Will and Jim until Mr. Dark intervenes. In the guise of her twelve-year-old nephew, he is able to persuade Miss Foley to come to the carnival. The tables are turned on him, however, when Will increases the speed of the carousel as Mr. Cooger is riding it, causing him to rapidly age to the point of decrepitude. At the climax of the book he crumbles into dust and dies when the freaks accidentally drop him while carrying him back to the carousel. Like Mr. Dark, his origins are unknown.
The Dust Witch
- A blind soothsayer with a sixth senseExtra-sensory perceptionExtrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers, and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and...
and the ability to perform many feats of magic, the Witch is portrayed as one of the carnival's most dangerous members. However, her increased sensitivity to the presence and emotions of other people makes her vulnerable to positive feelings. Charles uses this weakness to kill her with a bullet carved with a smile.
Miss Foley
- A fifty-year-old schoolteacher of Will and Jim. Much like the other victims of the carnival, Miss Foley wished to become young and beautiful again. However, when she got her wish, she became frightened because she went blind. It is not stated in the novel what happened to Miss Foley at the end; the best theory is that she ran away with the freaks as the carnival collapsed.
The Skeleton
- An extremely thin, skeleton-like creature who is one of the more frequently appearing freaks. Like all of the other freaks, he once desired to be younger and was eventually tricked into joining the carnival. The Skeleton appears to be one of the more loyal freaks as, near the book's end, he takes the time to carry the recently deceased and youth Mr. Dark with him after all the other freaks ran away. He is last seen walking away into the hills that border the town.
Tom Fury/Dwarf
- A lightning rod salesman who is turned into an insane dwarf by the carnival and is recruited into it, with no memories of his former life.
Structure of the novel
Something Wicked This Way Comes can be interpreted as an allegoryAllegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of the struggle between good and evil
Goodness and evil
In religion, ethics, and philosophy, the dichotomy "good and evil" refers to the location on a linear spectrum of objects, desires, or behaviors, the good direction being morally positive, and the evil direction morally negative. Good is a broad concept but it typically deals with an association...
, with the human characters Will, Jim, and Charles on the side of morality, and Mr. Dark and his carnival on the side of sin and temptation
Temptation
A temptation is an act that looks appealing to an individual. It is usually used to describe acts with negative connotations and as such, tends to lead a person to regret such actions, for various reasons: legal, social, psychological , health, economic, etc...
. As in many other fictional works revolving around the same concept, good prevails in the end, not with supernatural or physical powers, but with purity of heart. Jim represents good that is always on the verge of giving into temptation, while Will is the part of us that relentlessly resists giving in.
As in Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
, Bradbury infuses the novel with nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
for his childhood. However, Dandelion Wine better represents the idyllic days, whereas Something Wicked explores the darker nights, combining folk-tale characters with supernatural elements to relate otherwise fantastical and gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
-themed motifs to American daily life.
Age and growth
The carnival's main allure to its participants is its ability to change age easily against natural causes. Jim wants to become an adult by riding the carousel forward, and Charles Halloway initially considers riding the carousel backwards. Even Will is somewhat tempted by the offer for a free trip to adulthood.Charles, however, quickly sees that a ride on the carousel can have unforeseen circumstances, because changing age instantly would not change the mind.
"If I made you twenty-five tomorrow, Jim, your thoughts would still be boy thoughts, and it'd show! Or if they turned me into a boy of ten this instant, my brain would still be fifty and that boy would act funnier and older and weirder than any boy ever."
Because of this, a person who rode the carousel would be reformed only physically, with the same sins and emotions contained inside. Moreover, his new physical form, created unnaturally, would alienate him from his family and peers, leaving him with nowhere to turn to except for the carnival.
Charles best personifies this theme; while he is middle-aged in body, he is still youthful in mind and spirit. At first, he sees the two conflicting personas within him as irreconcilable and longs to be physically young too, but his active participation in toppling the carnival proves to him that mental fitness and perception of one's age is more important than physical health.
Ironically, Will and Jim can be said to have aged prematurely in the novel; the horrors of the carnival force them to grow up fast to be able to deal with its tricks on a knowledgeable level. Furthermore, Will and Jim do take a brief ride on the carousel before Will pulls Jim off, and they are never shown reversing this process before Charles destroys its machinations. Thus, it can be stated that they in fact grow up slightly. In this case, though, Will and Jim have also matured emotionally too, having had their first encounter with evil. This enables them to grow more proportionally in both physical and emotional status.
Belief and fear
The novel also conveys the theme that the power of people, objects, and ideas have over you depends on the power you instill in them with your own mind. Because of this, the carnival is able to easily take advantage of the common human fearFear
Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger...
s of aging, death, and loneliness which everyone has or relates to.
Charles Halloway is the character who learns the most about this; he initially views death as unpleasant and it thus becomes a sinister force to him that the Mirror Maze magnifies. However, Will's words of love help him to see that age does not matter if one focuses instead on the knowledge and affections gained with it, and as his fear vanishes, so does the Mirror Maze. He also is able to defeat the Dust Witch once he realizes that she does not have ultimate control over him. With his belief in her powers gone, he turns the tables on the Witch by instilling the same fear in her of his smile that he used to have of her magic.
Viewpoint on life
Self-centered desires and wishWish
A wish is a hope or desire for something. Fictionally, wishes can be used as plot devices. In folklore, opportunities for "making a wish" or for wishes to "come true" or "be granted" are themes that are sometimes used.-In literature:...
es are portrayed as the base of human malice and unhappiness because they blind people to the blessings of life with an unattainable dream. The novel's main example of this is Miss Foley's seduction by Cooger's promise of youth that causes her to fail to see his deception as her "nephew," and lose her rightful place in society.
It is implied that the counter force against this is acceptance of one's faults and an enthusiastic pursuit of the everyday joys of life, signified by Charles' simultaneous running with Jim and Will at the end of the novel. The fact that he is nearly forty years older than them pales in comparison to the pleasure he gains from simple human companionship.
Literary Significance
Critics have praised Something Wicked This Way Comes as a classic of fantasy and horror, noting its masterful blending of both genres and Bradbury's unusual and mesmerizing prose. The most referenced characteristic of the novel's plot is its unusual subtlety and realism for its genres.The magazine Science Fiction Weekly published a review of the novel; an excerpt of it follows:
Science Fiction Crowsnest, another science fiction magazine reviewed it with high praise, referring to it as a "Masterwork" with "a suitably fantastic and scary plot around colourful description...with hidden meanings, mysteries and symbols adding to the layers of tension."
The Denver Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
said in 1999, "If rational beings had created the 100 best books of the century list, this one would surely have been on it."
Something Wicked has influenced several fantasy and horror authors, the most prominent being Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. The motif of ordinary people up against sinister, supernatural forces appears in many of King's works, including It
It (novel)
It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows the exploits of seven children as they are terrorized by the eponymous inter-dimensional predatory life-form that exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It"...
and Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher (novel)
Dreamcatcher is a horror novel written by Stephen King. It was adapted into a 2003 movie of the same name. The book, written longhand, was the author's tool for recuperation from a 1999 car accident, and was completed in half a year...
. King also discusses the Bradbury novel quite extensively in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre (book)
Danse Macabre is a non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, radio, film and comics, and the genre's influence on United States popular culture...
.
Film, theatrical and audio adaptations
The novel was made into the 1983 DisneyThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
film Something Wicked This Way Comes, with Bradbury as the screenwriter. In a later interview, Bradbury said that he considered the film one of the better adaptations of his works.
Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company also debuted a play based on the novel in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
on October 1, 2003, directed by Alan Neal Hubbs, also associated with the 1970 stage adaptation of Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
. The main cast was Grady Hutt as Will Halloway, J. Skylar Testa as Jim Nightshade, Jay Gerber as Charles Halloway, and Mark Aaron as Mr. Dark.
Critics gave the play generally favorable reviews, stating that it captured the lyricism and dark tone of the novel. They also praised its special effects, which included a carousel constructed of mirrors with actors as the horses, and Jay Gerber as Charles Halloway. Sharon Perlmutter of Talkin' Broadway, however, said that Hutt and Tests gave bland performances as the two lead characters.
Something Wicked This Way Comes was produced as a full-cast radio play by the Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air, and released by Blackstone Audio on October 1, 2007. Ray Bradbury wrote the script, modified for audio from his stage play. The cast includes Jerry Robbins as Mr. Halloway, J.T. Turner as Mr. Dark, Anastas Varinos as Will Halloway, and Matthew Scott Robertson as Jim Nightshade. This production was directed by Nancy Curran Willis, with music by Jeffrey Gage and post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
by Chris Snyder.
Something Wicked This Way Comes was produced as a radio play for the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
Saturday Play series and was broadcast on 29 October 2011. The production was adapted for radio by Diana Griffths and produced/directed by Pauline Harris with music by David Paul Jones and sound by Paul Cargill. The cast included Theo Gregory as Will, Josef Lindsay as Jim, Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman is a British theatre actor. He trained at RADA in London alongside Jonathan Pryce.In 1988, he played George Green's brother-in-law Cyril in London's Burning. He played character roles in episodes of the popular UK police drama The Bill...
as Charles Halloway, Gerard McDermott as Mr. Coogar/The Lightening Rod Salesman and Kenneth Cranham
Kenneth Cranham
Kenneth Cranham is a film, television and stage actor. He starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama Shine on Harvey Moon. He also appeared in Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1, Rome, Oliver! and many other films. He is probably best known to horror genre fans as the deranged Dr...
as Mr. Dark.
The novel in popular culture
King mentions the novel in his The Dead ZoneThe Dead Zone (novel)
The Dead Zone is a horror novel by Stephen King published in 1979. It concerns Johnny Smith, who is injured in an accident and enters a coma for nearly five years. When he emerges, he can see horrifying secrets but cannot identify all the details in his "dead zone", an area of his brain that...
as an acknowledgment of Bradbury's contribution to his genre, and even echoes the beginning scene of Something Wicked by referring to a lightning-rod salesman in a chapter titled "Dark Carnival" after another Bradbury work. Needful Things
Needful Things
Needful Things is a 1991 horror novel by American author Stephen King. According to the cover, it is "The Last Castle Rock Story." However, the town later served as the setting for the short story "It Grows on You," published in King's 1993 collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes which, according to...
and 'Salem's Lot also contain references and elements from the novel.
An adaption of Something Wicked This Way Comes was the main feature of a Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
-themed The Simpsons comic.
The TV show South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
parodied
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
the novel in the episode "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes
Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes
"Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" is episode 120 of Comedy Central's South Park. This episode originally aired on November 3, 2004. Its title and theme were inspired by the 1983 Disney movie Something Wicked This Way Comes based on the 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury.-Plot:The episode begins with...
" with a similar plot about a department store luring townsfolk with its super-low prices.
The award winning British TV comedy series The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen are a group of British comedians formed in 1995, best known for their radio and television series.The League of Gentlemen may also refer to:* The League of Gentlemen ,...
, known for its many popular horror references, features the Pandemonium Carnival of Papa Lazarou
Papa Lazarou
Papa Lazarou is a fictional character in the BBC TV comedy programme The League of Gentlemen.He appeared in two episodes, a Christmas special, and the film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. The character is part written by and played by Reece Shearsmith.Papa Lazarou has been listed as both the...
.
Steampunk Pioneers Vernian Process
Vernian Process
Vernian Process is an Avant-Garde band formed in San Francisco in 2003. Taking its name from the works of 19th century author Jules Verne, Vernian Process is a band that creates music themed around Victorian scientific romance and its modern counterpart steampunk...
released "Something Wicked (that way went)" in 2011, a song inspired by the novel.
American progressive metal
Progressive metal
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
band Redemption
Redemption (band)
Redemption is an American progressive metal band.- History :Redemption is composed of former and current members of Fates Warning and Prymary. Early incarnations of the group featured members of Symphony X and Steel Prophet...
have a song on their 2003-released self-titled debut album
Redemption (Redemption album)
Redemption is the eponymous debut album by the Los Angeles-based progressive metal band of the same name. The album was formed around the friendships and compositions of guitarist/keyboardist Nicholas van Dyk, joined by well-known musicians of the genre from bands like Steel Prophet, Agent Steel,...
based on the book.
Gothic horror band Nox Arcana
Nox Arcana
Nox Arcana is an American dark ambient musical group, formed in 2003 by Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski. Nox Arcana specializes in concept albums based on gothic fiction and classic horror literature. Such literary references include: H. P. Lovecraft, The Brothers Grimm, Ray Bradbury, and Edgar...
released an album in 2006 entitled Carnival of Lost Souls
Carnival of Lost Souls
Carnival of Lost Souls is an album by Nox Arcana, loosely based on the story "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury. On this album, Nox Arcana performs a style of music that is indicative of tunes associated with an late 19th-early 20th century circus or Vaudeville act, albeit with a...
, which is loosely based on the story.
Something Wicked is a 1993 album by the thrash metal band Nuclear Assault
Nuclear Assault
Nuclear Assault is an American thrash metal/crossover thrash band formed in 1984.-History:After the release of Anthrax's debut album Fistful of Metal, bass player Danny Lilker, a founding member of the group, was fired by the band...
. The title song uses the full reference from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" as part of the chorus.
The 1994 concept album The Last Temptation by shock rocker Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
, as well as the accompanying four-part comic series by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, borrow several elements from the novel, something that is referenced by Gaiman as the novel is being studied in Steven's class at school in the days just before Halloween.
The British jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
/hip-hop band The Herbaliser
The Herbaliser
The Herbaliser is a jazz rap band formed by Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba London, England during the early 1990s. Although currently signed to !K7 Records, they were one of the best-known acts from the Ninja Tune independent record label...
released a 2002 album with the same title and a similar cover.
The experimental music artist "Deathwatch Beetle Repairman" has an instrumental song entitled "The Carny of Mr. Dark".
Season 4 of NBC's Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
stars Robert Knepper
Robert Knepper
Robert Lyle Knepper is an American actor. He is best known for starring as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox network's drama series Prison Break, for which he was nominated a Satellite Award...
as "Samuel" who has a similar persona as G.M. Dark and uses Lydia (the tattooed lady) and her tattoos to gain information about others.
Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson...
, reputedly a fan of Bradbury's, titled his 1967 debut album Pandemonium Shadow Show
Pandemonium Shadow Show
Pandemonium Shadow Show is the second album by Harry Nilsson. It was the first product of his three-year, $50,000 recording contract with RCA Records, and was recorded in their Hollywood studio...
after the carnival in this novel.
The song "The Dark Ride" from German power metal
Power metal
Power metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...
band Helloween
Helloween
Helloween is a German power metal band founded in the mid 1980s by members of Iron Fist and Powerfool. The band was a pioneering force in the European Power Metal movement and their second and third studio albums, Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt...
's album of the same name
The Dark Ride
On copies of The Dark Ride and Rabbit Don't Come Easy the disc has "Mr. Torture" and "All over the Nations" in reverse order so this way "All over the Nations" is track #2...
is inspired by the novel.
Shock rocker Wednesday 13
Wednesday 13
Joseph Poole, better known as Wednesday 13 , is a rock musician from Charlotte, North Carolina. He is most famous for his role as the frontman of the Murderdolls...
included a song with the same title on their 2011 album Calling All Corpses.
Release details
- 1962, USA, Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
(ISBN 0-671-67960-0), Pub date: June 1962, hardcover (First edition) - 1963, USA BantamBantam BooksBantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
(ASIN B000NQBVPO Bantam # H2630 ), Pub date: September 1963, paperback (first printing) - 1983, USA, Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
(ISBN 0-394-53041-1), Pub date: March 1983, hardcover - 1997, USA, BantamBantam BooksBantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
USA (ISBN 0-553-28032-5), Pub date: December 1997, paperback (Grand Master Editions) - 1998, USA, AvonAvon (publishers)Avon Publications was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. As of 2010, it is an imprint of HarperCollins, publishing primarily romance novels.-History:...
(ISBN 0-380-72940-7), Pub date: March 1998, paperback (Mass Market Paperback) - 1999, USA, Eos (ISBN 0-380-97727-3), Pub date: June 1999, hardcover
- 2001, USA, Bookspan (ISBN 0-9650204-5-2), Pub date: 2001, hardcover
External links
- Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, reviewed by Ted Gioia (Conceptual Fiction)
- Official Ray Bradbury Web site
- Something Wicked This Way Comes learning guide, analysis, quotes, & teacher resources
- BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play: Something Wicked This Way Comes