| "There Will Come Soft Rains" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story byRay Bradbury | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genres | Science fiction,post-apocalyptic fiction | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Collier's Weekly | ||
| Publication type | Periodical | ||
| Media type | Print magazine | ||
| Publication date | May 6, 1950 (issue date) | ||
| Chronology | |||
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"There Will Come Soft Rains" is ascience fictionshort story by authorRay Bradbury written as achronicle about a lone house that stands intact in aCalifornia city that has otherwise been obliterated by anuclear bomb, and then is destroyed in a fire caused by a windstorm. The title is from a 1918poem of the same name bySara Teasdale that was published duringWorld War I and theSpanish flu pandemic. The story was first published in 1950 in two different versions in two separate publications, a one-page short story inCollier's magazine and a chapter of thefix-upnovelThe Martian Chronicles.
The author regarded it as "the one story that represents the essence of Ray Bradbury".[1] Bradbury's foresight in recognizing the potential for the complete self-destruction of humans bynuclear war in the work was recognized by thePulitzer Prize Board in conjunction with awarding a Special Citation in 2007 that noted, "While time has (mostly) quelled the likelihood of total annihilation, Bradbury was a lone voice among his contemporaries in contemplating the potentialities of such horrors."[2] The author considered the short story as the only one inThe Martian Chronicles to be a work of science fiction.[3]
A nuclear catastrophe leaves the city ofAllendale,California, entirely desolate. However, within one miraculously preserved house, the daily routine continues –automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state asburnt silhouettes on one of the walls.
A sickly and emaciateddog, having previously belonged to the family, enters the house. It is unable to enter the kitchen, where the automated systems are makingpancakes. It runs around in a frenzy, before dying. After an hour, the automated systems remove the dog's body, incinerating it.
That evening, the house recites to the absent hostess a random selection by her favorite poet, "There Will Come Soft Rains" bySara Teasdale. A windstorm blows a tree branch through a window in the kitchen, starting a fire. The house's systems desperately attempt to put out the fire, but the doomed home burns to the ground in a night. The following dawn, all that remains is a single wall, which contains an automated system that endlessly reads aloud the date.
The short story first appeared in the May 6, 1950 issue ofCollier's magazine,[4] and was revised and included as a chapter titled "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains" in Bradbury'sThe Martian Chronicles that was also first published in May 1950. The official publication dates for the two versions were only two days apart. The 1997 edition ofThe Martian Chronicles advanced all dates in the 1950 edition by 31 years, changing the title to "August 2057: There Will Come Soft Rains".
It was published as stand alone in 1984 in an anthology of short stories published in EnglishTop Science Fiction and in SpanishLa crema de la ciencia ficción with an introduction by Ray Bradbury himself, writing that he wrote this short history after he saw a picture of a Hiroshima wall with the preserved shadows of people the bomb had killed.
