Stephen King Books

Stephen King is an American author best known for his horror and supernatural fiction works. Stephen King was born in 1947 to Donald Edwin King (a merchant Seaman) and Nellie Ruth in Portland Maine.

Made famous by Carrie, his first novel, written in 1973 and published by Doubleday, Stephen King is the world’s most widely renowned supernatural/horror fiction novelist. With over fifty novels under his name, along with nearly 200 short stories, King’s works have astounded and demented readers for decades, King crafting some of the most bizarre worlds and monstrous characters the literary arena has ever seen. His books have sold over 300 million copies, with titles like the Shining, The Stand and The Dead Zone earning the writer considerable fame.

Born in September 1947 in Portland, Maine, Stephen Edwin King, started his education at Durham Elementary School, followed by Lisbon Falls High School, which is where he cultivated his interested in the horror genre. With his love of horror growing, King ended up attending the University of Maine, where he studied English.

With his burgeoning interest in horror fiction and now his background in English, as well as the writing that he had started out doing whilst at school, the path that Stephen King’s career took was of no shock. It only took three years, after graduating in 1970, for King to have his first feature-length novel published, which was the now infamous Carrie, about a young girl with psychic powers who is ostracised at school for not fitting in. Due to the success of the book itself, Carrie was also made into a film, starring Sissy Spacek.

King followed up Carrie with Salem’s Lot, and then The Shining, both of which were turned into films, but The Shining, both the book and the film, are seen as one of King’s greatest pieces of fiction. King’s work continued to be critically acclaimed, as well as achieving great commercial success, as well as many having film or television adaptations made of them, due to the ever increasing popularity of King’s work. The much-loved Shawshank Redemption starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman is an adaptation of a short story written by King, and The Green Mile, starring Tom Hanks, is an adaptation of King’s work.

As well as writing under his own name, King has also released work under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The novels released under the Bachman pseudonym tend to be shorter than King’s normal verbose pieces of work, and included works such as The Running Man, and Thinner. King claimed he did it as an exercise in trying to mimic his previous success under a new name.

Stephen King isn’t exactly known for series. Starting with Carrie (which was published in 1974), Salem’s Lot (1975), The Shining and the Rage, all the way to more recent works like Joyland, Revival, and End of Watch, most of Stephen King’s novels are standalone books.

There have been a few exceptions, the most prominent being The Dark Tower’. The first volume in the series, The Gunslinger, was little more than a collection of short stories that King wrote in the 1970s and 1980s, stories that were only amalgamated to form the first Dark Tower Volume in 2002.

Several other volumes have been published since.

Stephen King Awards:

As the master of horror, Stephen King is no stranger to accolades, having won numerous awards during his illustrious career, the most prominent of which include a Life Time Achievement Award in 2004, US Magazine 1982: Best Fiction Writer of the Year, the Edgar Award for Best Novel for Mr. Mercedes (which was published in 2015), and the international author award in 2004 to mention but a few.

Stephen King Books into Movies

More of Stephen King’s novels have been adapted into movies than most authors in any genre could possibly dream of. King has highlighted The Mist and The Shawshank Redemption as being his favorite film adaptations of his novels.

Movies like Pet Sematary, The Stand, The Shining, and Rose Red to mention but a few, all adapted from Stephen King’s works, continue to impact cinema goers to this very day. While some of these films have come under criticism for their unfaithful adaptation of King’s work, it is clear that Stephen King is, none the less, a favorite among Hollywood movie producers.

In 2017, King saw his biggest ever box office success as IT blew away the Green Mile to become his most successful adaptation ever. The Green Mile had a box office total of $136 million while IT would gross over $326 million.

2017 also saw what could be considered his biggest flop at the box office. The Dark Tower was intended to be a major franchise going forward in both film and television, but it wasn’t well received by critics and audiences alike. While the movie could be considered a financial success thanks to its overseas gross, the movie only made $50.7 million in the US and Canada against a $60 million production budget.

The TV series is still in production and is expected to be a complete reboot from what we saw on the big screen. Glen Mazzara from The Walking Dead fame is on board as executive producer with the first season expected to come in between 10-13 episodes.

The streaming era has been very good to Stephen King adaptations as Gerald’s Game and 1922 were both released on Netflix in 2017. He’s also seen 11.22.63 adapted for Hulu with Castle Rock coming as a series on Hulu as well. Under the Dome, The Mist and Mr. Mercedes have all been adapted into television series over the past few years as well.

Best Stephen King Books

It is rather difficult to sieve through Stephen King’s impressive body of work, though these two books tend to stand out:

IT: This is one of Stephen King’s most popular works. Published in 1986, the book follows seven children (the so-called misfits) that must face the terror of a vicious creature that can exploit the deepest darkest fears and phobias of its targets. Told from two different timelines, IT’ is the very manifestation of what has made Stephen King so popular, bringing to the fro childhood trauma and the darkness that is often hiding beneath the sunny disposition of many a small town.

IT was adapted into a highly popular two-part Television movie decades ago. The novel is in the process of receiving another bigger budget movie adaptation. King received the British Fantasy Award in 1987 for his work on this novel, this along with being nominated for the World Fantasy award.

IT ranked high on the list of best-selling books in the year that it was published.

The Shining: The Shining is currently a staple in most people’s book libraries. A masterpiece of fictional horror, The Shining was published in 1977. Only King’s third novel at the time, the book centers on Jack Torrance, a writer whose decision to become the caretaker of a hotel in Colorado Rockies visits all manner of horrors upon his family.

The Shining was influenced by many of Stephen King’s own personal experiences. It was adapted into a movie in 1980 that has since become a cult classic and is currently considered recommended viewing for any student of film.

King has admitted to being influenced by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson in crafting The Shining. The novel was nominated for the Locus award in 1978. Many consider the novel to be King’s best book. Digging into Stephen King’s own psyche, The Shining highlighted King’s particularly morbid approach to storytelling, the depths to which he sunk Jack Torrance and his family manifesting the sadistic elements that have since become commonplace in King’s work.

Stephen King FAQs

Q: Where was Stephen King born?

A: The author Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine. That part of the world, Maine, tends to feature a lot in Stephen King’s works, although many of the towns King creates are fiction, but based on places King knows.

Q: What was the first book published by Stephen King?

A: The first book written by Stephen King to be published was Carrie, which was released in 1973. Carrie has since been adapted into three movies, a TV movie and even a stage Broadway musical.

When Does The Next Stephen King book come out?

The next book by Stephen King is The Outsider and will be released on June, 5th 2018.

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Updated: September 7, 2016