Bradbury married Marguerite McClure in 1947, and the same year, he gathered much of his best materials and published them as Dark Carnival, his first short story collection. From then on, Bradbury's fantasy works were published in numerous magazines throughout the country.
Bradbury says that he learned to write by recalling his own experiences. Many of his early stories are based, unsurprisingly, on his childhood experiences in Illinois. For example, "The Jar" (Weird Tales, 1944) is based on the first time that Bradbury saw a pickled embryo, which was displayed in a sideshow at one of the carnivals visiting his hometown. "Homecoming" (Mademoiselle, 1946) was inspired by his relatives' marvelous Halloween parties, and "Uncle Einar" (Dark Carnival, 1947), a story about a man with green wings, is based loosely on one of Bradbury's uncles.
In 1947, after Dark Carnival (a collection of weird and macabre stories) was published, Bradbury turned to another kind of writing — philosophical science fiction. One work in particular, The Martian Chronicles (1950), grew out of Bradbury's own personal philosophy and his concern for the future of humankind. The Martian Chronicles reflects some of the prevailing anxieties of America in the early atomic age of the 1950's: the fear of nuclear war, the longing for a simpler life, reactions against racism and censorship, and the fear of foreign political powers.
