The name P.G. Wodehouse normally does not spring to mind when talking about futurists. Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke and Alvin Toffler certainly, but Pelham Grenville quite definitely not!

Wodehouse is someone one would associate with Bertie Wooster and the inimitable dolichocephalic, fish-eating Jeeves. Some may conjure up visions of the muddle-headed Lord Emsworth and his magnificent beast the Empress of Blandings.

But the die-hard Wodehouse fan will also tell you about Rupert Psmith and his other schoolboy stories. Though often ignored and somewhat hard to find, many unusual nuggets lurk in these innocuous tales.

It is to one of these that I would draw attention. Titled An International Affair, it was published in The Captain in 1905, and can be found in the Project Gutenberg free eBooks collection called The Politeness of Princess and Other Stories'.

The story is rather prescient it reads like the classic tale of the neighborhood mom-and-pop store facing the giant retailer. You could easily substitute the latter today with Walmart or Carrefour.

Oliver Ring, the American owner of Ring's Come-one Come-all Up-to-date Stores, happens to be passing through the lazy English countryside town of Wrykyn, home to the boy's school bearing the same name. The shop windows in Wrykyn resemble those in every other country town in England, having no initiative and none of that quality that would arrest the pedestrian's progress.

In America, Mr Ring reflected, they did these things better, and then it dawned upon him that this was the perfect place for setting up one of his mega stores.

We are told that of Mr Ring's Come-one Come-all Up-to-date Stores are well known all over the world, with offices in Broadway, New York and others in Chicago, St. Louis and St. Paul within America. Overseas offices exist in London, Paris and Berlin which basically amounts to saying everywhere in the world.

In Mr. Wodehouse's words, The peculiar advantage of Ring's Stores is that you can get anything you happen to want there, from a motor to a macaroon, and rather cheaper than you could get it anywhere else.

Of course, what he was describing was the early twentieth century, when one can only guess where these multitudes of products are produced. Not China, perhaps.

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P. G. Wodehouse, futurist

Ray Bradbury has died at the age of 91. He wrote such classics as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. Futuristic tales from a man who never used a computer, or even drove a car.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Some sad news this morning, the world has lost a literary giant. Author Ray Bradbury died last night, after a long illness. He was 91 years old. He wrote such classics as "The Martian Chronicles" and "Fahrenheit 451" - futuristic tales from a man who never used a computer or even drove a car. NPR's Arnie Seipel has more on Bradbury and his curious life.

ARNIE SEIPEL, BYLINE: Ray Bradbury grew up during the Great Depression. He said it was a time when people couldn't imagine the future and Bradbury's active imagination made him stand out. He once told WHYY's FRESH AIR about exaggerating basic childhood fears, like monsters at the top of the stairs.

RAY BRADBURY: As soon as I looked up, there it was, and it was horrible. And I would scream and fall back down the stairs. And my mother and father would get up and sigh and say, oh my God, here we go again.

SEIPEL: He dove into books as a child. Wild tales from authors Jules VerneBradbury dove into books as a child. Wild tales from authors Jules Verne and H.G. Wells captivated Bradbury - and made him dream of becoming a great author. So he started writing, churning out a short story every week during his teens. After his family moved to Southern California, he would escape to the basement of the UCLA library. There, he'd focus on his craft.

BRADBURY: For 10 cents a half-hour you could rent a typewriter. And I thought, my gosh, this is terrific! I can be here for a couple hours a day. It'll cost me 30, 40 cents, and get my work done.

SEIPEL: Bradbury made his mark in the literary world with "The Martian Chronicles," a collection of short stories released in 1950. During the height of the Red Scare, he set off a warning flare about censorship with his signature work, "Fahrenheit 451" - and he did so in a controversial new magazine: Playboy. The story was later printed as a novel, and in 1966 director Francois Truffaut introduced movie audiences to this bizarre society Bradbury created: one in which firemen burned books to keep the masses completely ignorant but couldn't extinguish their curiosity.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FAHRENHEIT 451")

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The Curious Life Of Futurist Author Ray Bradbury