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Bloch told him: “You’ve got a big future ahead of you don’t let the publishers eat you up.” “It was probably about 1982, so I’d done ‘Carrie’ and ‘Salem’s Lot’ and some of the other ones, but not a lot,” he said. “Pleasant Dreams,” a collection of short stories by the horror and fantasy writer Robert Bloch (1917-1994), reminded King of a long conversation he once had with the writer at a convention. The ‘Jurassic Park’ of its day.”Ī collection of stories by Robert Bloch, who once told King, “Don’t let the publishers eat you up.” It’s about going back into the past and fighting dinosaurs and that kind of thing. Claudy,” King said, intoning the book’s title with purposeful kidlike wonder. The originals were a thousand copies or something, it wasn’t much. A lot of them published at a penny a word or something like that, so they ground them out, and there’s a wide range. “They were all published in the pulps back in the day. More than once while we talked, King paused to say, “I wish Tabby was here.” One such gift was a collection issued by Arkham House, a Wisconsin-based publisher of “weird fiction” founded in 1939, whose books meant a lot to King as a young reader.

#OLD LIBRARY BOOKS ON SHELVES SERIES#

Several shelves are taken up with themed series of books, many of them gifts to King from his wife of more than 50 years, Tabitha, whose own collection lives here, too. Lovecraft's letters, published by Arkham House, are part of King's personal library. His relationships with everyone there were long-term, and those gathered felt far less like a retinue than a warm family reunited. Several people stood nearby as King, 76, browsed the library with me - members of his publishing team, local friends, foundation administrators. The long room is lined on each side with books very neatly arranged: fiction along one wall, alphabetical by author, and nonfiction on the other, grouped by subject. The important thing to know about this whole room is that this used to be where the kids hung out when they were teenagers, and all their friends. “But we don’t really live here anymore, and it’s kind of a time capsule. “The house has been here since 1845 we’ve been here since 1976,” he said. 25 mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, which spurred King to speak out in multiple public forums against our culture of gun violence.)

(The nonprofit foundation awards grants for projects that address the causes and consequences of “social and environmental problems” in Maine communities. Or a lot.īut the fear-dispelling sunshine the next day was followed by a very genial King greeting me in the downstairs library of his former home, which is now the Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation. Book Tour is a new series in which notable people show us their personal libraries.īANGOR, Maine - It was not possible to arrive alone in this city after dark on a quiet night in summer, knowing that I was there to meet Stephen King, and not feel a little creeped out.

Old library books on shelves