The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Golden Apples of the Sun is an anthology of 22 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It was published by Doubleday & Company in 1953. The book's title is also the title of the final story in the collection. The words "the golden apples of the sun" are from the last line of the final stanza of W. B. Yeats' poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus" (1899):

Bradbury prefaces his book with the last three lines of this poem. When asked what attracted him to the line "the golden apples of the sun", he said, "[My wife] Maggie introduced me to Romantic poetry when we were dating, and I loved it. I love that line in the poem, and it was a metaphor for my story, about taking a cup full of fire from the sun."The Golden Apples of the Sun was Bradbury's third published collection of short stories. The first, Dark Carnival, was published by Arkham House in 1947; the second, The Illustrated Man, was published by Doubleday & Company in 1951.