Stephen King

Take an intimate tour through the life and works of Stephen King, made vivid with rare photos and ephemera from King’s personal collection. Even if you are a die-hard fan, you will find something new in this beautifully packaged Stephen King reference that you will return to again and again. Timed to celebrate Stephen King’s 75th birthday on September 21, 2022, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences reveals the inspiration behind the prolific author’s brilliant works of horror through a combination of photos and documents from King’s archives and an engaging account of the stories behind how his novels, novellas, short stories, and adaptations came to be. It might sound like a tall tale that Stephen King once met a bartender named Grady in an empty hotel in Colorado, or that the celebrated author helped his young daughter bury her cat in a nearby “pets sematary” after it was killed on a busy roadway. In this book, discover how King drew on these and more real personal experiences and mundane life events, then employed his extraordinary imagination to twist them into something horrific.   From impoverished university student to struggling schoolteacher to one of the best-selling—and most recognizable—authors of all time, this engrossing book reveals the evolution and influences of Stephen King’s body of work over his nearly 50-year career, and how the themes of his writing reflect the changing times and events within his life.   An expansion of Stephen King expert Bev Vincent’s The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, this fully revised, redesigned, and updated book includes:   - A review of King’s complete body of work, including Fairy Tale, published in September 2022.- A wealth of rare memorabilia from King’s own collection, including personal and professional correspondences, handwritten manuscript pages, book covers, movie stills, and a never-before-seen excerpts from one of his poems.- Interludes on specific topics such as real-life settings that inspired King’s writing, the editor who discovered him, his life as a Boston Red Sox fan, and the many awards and honors he has received.- Insightful quotes from King from interviews over the decades. Celebrate the beloved King of Horror with this informational and entertaining look inside King’s most iconic titles and the culture they have created.

Bev Vincent is the author of several non-fiction books, including The Road to the Dark Tower and Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences. In 2018, he co-edited the anthology Flight or Fright with King and has published over 130 stories, with appearances in Ellery Queen’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s and Black Cat Mystery magazines. His work has been published in over twenty languages and nominated for the Stoker (twice), Edgar, Locus, Ignotus, Rondo Hatton Classic Horror and ITW Thriller Awards. To learn more, visit bevvincent.com

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 THE FUTURE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN (1950–1969) INTERLUDE: THE POETRY OF STEPHEN KING CHAPTER 2 THE DOUBLEDAY YEARS (1970s) INTERLUDE: STEPHEN KING AS RICHARD BACHMAN INTERLUDE: WELCOME TO CASTLE ROCK CHAPTER 3 MIDAS TOUCH (1980s) INTERLUDE: THE DARK TOWER INTERLUDE: UNSEEN KING INTERLUDE: WELCOME TO DERRY CHAPTER 4 EXPERIMENTATION AND CHANGE (1990s) INTERLUDE: THE ACCIDENT CONTENTS CHAPTER 5 AFTER THE ACCIDENT (2000s) INTERLUDE: THE STEPHEN KING UNIVERSE CHAPTER 5 KING OF CRIME (2010 AND BEYOND) CONCLUSION THE TEST OF TIME SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX I BOOKS APPENDIX II SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLAS APPENDIX III ADAPTATIONS ENDNOTES IMAGE CREDITS ABOUT THE AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS