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THE TOYNBEE CONVECTOR
Ray Bradbury
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB
First published by Alfred A. Knopf June 1988
Some of these stories originally appeared in Gallery, Omni, Playboy, Twilight Zone, and Weird Tales. “A Touch of Petulance” originally appeared in Dark Forces, published by Viking Penguin Inc. The Last Circus and The Love Affair were originally published by Lord John Press.
Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1988
Cover design by Mike Topping.
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Ray Bradbury asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007539802
Version: 2014–07–17
And this one, with love,
to my granddaughters
JULIA
and
CLAIRE
and
GEORGIA
and
MALLORY
Table of Contents
The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair
I Suppose You Are Wondering Why We Are Here?
One for His Lordship, and One for the Road!
At Midnight, in the Month of June
Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned
The Thing at the Top of the Stairs
Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-made Truly Egyptian Mummy
“Good! Great! Bravo for me!”
Roger Shumway flung himself into the seat, buckled himself in, revved the rotor and drifted his Dragonfly Super-6 helicopter up to blow away on the summer sky, heading south toward La Jolla.
“How lucky