As Halloween approaches, and to honor the legendary science fiction and fantasy author Ray Bradbury (who died on June 5, 2012 at age 91), we share with you Bradbury’s 1972 novel The Halloween Tree. Bradbury’s novel is often credited with popularizing the idea of Halloween as a pagan holiday, and explaining that trick-or-treating had ancient roots in pre-Christianity. The novel began as an unproduced screenplay, which Bradbury collaborated on with cartoonist Chuck Jones. In 1992, Bradbury wrote and narrated a made-for-television feature film version of the novel, for which he won an Emmy. Also, the Halloween Tree has long been a part of the annual park-wide Halloween decorations at Disneyland.

Special Collections and Archives has in our collections a first printing of the 1972 novel, a presentation copy which Bradbury signed and gave to his friends Margaret and Kenneth Millar. We also have the papers of both Margaret Millar and Kenneth Millar in our collections. Kenneth Millar (1915-1983) used the pseudonym Ross Macdonald, as the very popular American-Canadian writer of crime fiction, and Margaret Millar (1915-1994) was an acclaimed mystery writer.