Ray Bradbury’s collection of books, art and more sells for $493,408

A collection of Ray Bradbury’s personal book collection, art, rare science fiction ephemera and more was auctioned last week for close to a half-million dollars.

Bradbury, the author of the books “Fahreheit 451,” “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” “The Martian Chronicles,” poems, plays and more, died in 2012 at age 91. His long career reached from Hollywood, where he worked for Disney and with John Houston, to NASA, where he worked as a consultant.

Photos of Bradbury’s home office in Los Angeles showed a room stuffed full of manuscripts and books, awards and action figures, signed memorabilia and art.

Many of those items went up for auction last week. There were 16 bids for a collection of Bradbury’s personal watches -- eight wristwatches and a pocketwatch -- which sold for a total of $3,495. The biggest-ticket item was the original, commissioned artwork for the cover of “The Illustrated Man” by Dean Ellis, which went for $45,894.

That’s a big price, but seems like a bargain compared to Bradbury real estate; earlier this year, his longtime Los Angeles home was sold for $1.765 million.

Take a look at a selection of the items that were sold at auction in the photo gallery above.

Twitter: @paperhaus