Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene . Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels.
173-539: Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Widely known for his horror novels , he has been crowned the "King of Horror". He has also explored other genres, among them suspense , crime , science-fiction , fantasy and mystery . Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories , most of which have been published in collections. His debut, Carrie (1974), established him in horror. Different Seasons (1982),
346-517: A Trace ) "hold a shallow mirror to a pre-teen's world." Leona Fisher argues that the new series portrays an increasingly white River Heights, partially because "the clumsy first-person narrative voice makes it nearly impossible to interlace external authorial attitudes into the discourse," while it continues and worsens "the implicitly xenophobic cultural representations of racial, ethnic, and linguistic others" by introducing gratuitous speculations on characters' national and ethnic origins. The character
519-472: A West Virginia women's prison. King and Richard Chizmar co-wrote Gwendy's Button Box (2017). A sequel, Gwendy's Magic Feather (2019), was a solo effort by Chizmar. In 2022, King and Chizmar rejoined forces for Gwendy's Final Task . King made his screenwriting debut with George A. Romero 's Creepshow (1982), a tribute to EC horror comics . In 1985, he wrote another horror anthology film, Cat's Eye . Rob Reiner , whose film Stand by Me (1986)
692-472: A book of short fiction including " The Reach " and The Mist . He recalls: "I would be asked, 'What happened in your childhood that makes you want to write those terrible things?' I couldn't think of any real answer to that. And I thought to myself, 'Why don't you write a final exam on horror, and put in all the monsters that everyone was afraid of as a kid? Put in Frankenstein, the werewolf, the vampire,
865-462: A cave, a mirror and a mirage—we are sometimes able to see an old thing in a new and vivid way. Even if the result is mere clarity instead of beauty, I think writer and reader are participating together in a kind of miracle. Maybe that's drawing it a little strong, but yeah—it's what I believe." When asked if fear was his main subject, King said "In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you, whether it's
1038-414: A collection of four novellas, was his first major departure from the genre. Among the films adapted from King's fiction are Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), The Dead Zone (1983), Christine (1983), Stand by Me (1986), Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Dolores Claiborne (1995), The Green Mile (1999), The Mist (2007) and It (2017). He has published under
1211-417: A feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in
1384-417: A few early books which I felt readers might like. Then he began to grow and come alive, as the creatures of a writer's imagination so frequently do... He took on his own reality, that's all, and when his cover was blown, he died." Originally, King planned Misery to be released under the pseudonym before his identity was discovered. When Desperation (1996) was released, the companion novel The Regulators
1557-568: A ghostly figure bound in chains. The figure disappeared in the courtyard; the following day, the magistrates dug in the courtyard and found an unmarked grave. Elements of the horror genre also occur in Biblical texts, notably in the Book of Revelation . The Witch of Berkeley by William of Malmesbury has been viewed as an early horror story. Werewolf stories were popular in medieval French literature . One of Marie de France 's twelve lais
1730-556: A haunted 1958 Plymouth Fury ." Later that year, he published Pet Sematary , which he had written in the late 1970s, when his family was living near a highway that "used up a lot of animals" as a neighbor put it. His daughter's cat was killed, and they buried it in a pet cemetery built by the local children. King imagined a burial ground beyond it that could raise the dead, albeit imperfectly. He initially found it too disturbing to publish, but resurrected it to fulfill his contract with Doubleday . In 1985, King published Skeleton Crew ,
1903-451: A high degree of life," whereas horror is described as that which "freezes and nearly annihilates them." Modern scholarship on horror fiction draws upon a range of sources. In their historical studies of the gothic novel, both Devendra Varma and S. L. Varnado make reference to the theologian Rudolf Otto , whose concept of the " numinous " was originally used to describe religious experience. A recent survey reports how often horror media
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#17327660327392076-447: A life of his own. In the author's note, King writes that "I am indebted to the late Richard Bachman ." In 1990, King published Four Past Midnight , a collection of four novellas with the common theme of time. In 1991, he published Needful Things , his first novel since achieving sobriety, billed as "The Last Castle Rock Story". In 1992, he published Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne , two novels about women loosely linked by
2249-677: A limited edition of 250 by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art . Alfred A. Knopf released it in a general trade edition. King co-wrote Throttle (2009) with his son Joe Hill . The novella is an homage to Richard Matheson 's "Duel". Their second collaboration, In the Tall Grass (2012), was published in two parts in Esquire . King and his son Owen co-wrote Sleeping Beauties (2018), set in
2422-448: A lot and write a lot." He emphasizes the importance of good description, which "begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary. I began learning my lessons in this regard by reading Chandler , Hammett , and Ross Macdonald ; I gained perhaps even more respect for the power of compact, descriptive language from reading T. S. Eliot (those ragged claws scuttling across
2595-464: A mass cancellation of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys spin-offs, except for younger children. The Files series ran until the end of 1997, while both the Super Mystery and On Campus series ran until the beginning of 1998. In 2003, publishers Simon & Schuster ended the original Nancy Drew series and began featuring Nancy's character in a new mystery series, Girl Detective . The Nancy Drew of
2768-465: A modern context. He recalls that while writing 'Salem's Lot , "I decided I wanted to try to use the book partially as a form of literary homage (as Peter Straub had done in Ghost Story , working in the tradition of such 'classical' ghost story writers as Henry James , M. R. James , and Nathaniel Hawthorne ). So my novel bears an intentional similarity to Bram Stoker 's Dracula , and after
2941-482: A new series, Nancy Drew Diaries , was launched in 2013. Illustrations of the character evolved over time to reflect contemporary styles. The Nancy Drew franchise has been adapted into other forms of media with varied success. As of April 2020, the character has been adapted into six feature films, three television series, four television pilots, 33 video games produced by the brand HeR Interactive , and two different comic book series. Film and television adaptations of
3114-560: A novel. She told him: "You've got something here. I really think you do." Per The Guardian , Carrie "is the story of Carrie White, a high-school student with latent—and then, as the novel progresses, developing—telekinetic powers. It's brutal in places, affecting in others (Carrie's relationship with her almost hysterically religious mother being a particularly damaged one), and gory in even more." The review of Carrie in The New York Times noted that "King does more than tell
3287-553: A pandemic and its aftermath. King recalls that it was the novel that took him the longest to write, and that it was "also the one my longtime readers still seem to like the best". In 1977, the Kings, with the addition of Owen Philip , their third and youngest child, traveled briefly to England. They returned to Maine that fall, and King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine . The courses he taught on horror provided
3460-529: A parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his audience, which holds him prisoner and dictates what he writes, on pain of death" while The Dark Half "is a parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his creative genius, the vampire within him, the part of him that only awakes to raise Cain when he writes." Introducing King at the National Book Awards , Walter Mosley said "Stephen King once said that daily life
3633-416: A recently widowed novelist. Several reviewers said that it showed King's maturation as a writer; Charles de Lint wrote "He hasn't forsaken the spookiness and scares that have made him a brand name, but he uses them more judiciously now... The present-day King has far more insight into the human condition than did his younger self, and better yet, all the skills required to share it with us." Bag of Bones won
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#17327660327393806-430: A sense similar to the reason a person seeks out the controlled thrill of a roller coaster , readers in the modern era seek out feelings of horror and terror to feel a sense of excitement. However, Barrette adds that horror fiction is one of the few mediums where readers seek out a form of art that forces themselves to confront ideas and images they "might rather ignore to challenge preconceptions of all kinds." One can see
3979-698: A sequel to The Shining. During his Chancellor's Speaker Series talk at University of Massachusetts Lowell on December 7, 2012, King said that he was writing a crime novel about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer, with the working title Mr. Mercedes . In an interview with Parade , he confirmed that the novel was "more or less" completed. It was published in 2014 and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel . He returned to horror with Revival , which he called "a nasty, dark piece of work". King announced in June 2014 that Mr. Mercedes
4152-609: A series about a lone gunslinger, Roland , who pursues the " Man in Black " in an alternate universe that is a cross between J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth and the American Wild West as depicted by Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone in their spaghetti Westerns . The first story, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger , was initially published in five installments in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under
4325-500: A similar format to its predecessor with first person narration and references to modern pop culture and technology. The books, written under the Carolyn Keene pseudonym, are targeted to readers aged 8–12 and primarily follow Nancy, with her friends Bess and George, solving both violent and nonviolent crimes. There are 26 books in the series, including one holiday special published in 2018 that also features The Hardy Boys. Like in
4498-460: A solar eclipse. The latter novel is narrated by the title character in an unbroken monologue; Mark Singer described it as "a morally riveting confession from the earthy mouth of a sixty-six-year-old Maine coastal-island native with a granite-hard life but not a grain of self-pity". King said he based the character of Claiborne on his mother. In 1994, King's story " The Man in the Black Suit "
4671-408: A story intends to shock and disgust, but the best horror intends to rattle our cages and shake us out of our complacency. It makes us think, forces us to confront ideas we might rather ignore, and challenges preconceptions of all kinds. Horror reminds us that the world is not always as safe as it seems, which exercises our mental muscles and reminds us to keep a little healthy caution close at hand. In
4844-400: A story. He is a schoolteacher himself, and he gets into Carrie's mind as well as into the minds of her classmates." King was teaching Dracula to high school students and wondered what would happen if Old World vampires came to a small New England town. This was the germ of 'Salem's Lot , which King called " Peyton Place meets Dracula ". King's mother died from uterine cancer around
5017-538: A strong female heroine. Stratemeyer initially pitched the new series to Hardy Boys publishers Grosset & Dunlap as the "Stella Strong Stories," adding that "they might also be called 'Diana Drew Stories,' 'Diana Dare Stories,' 'Nan Nelson Stories,' 'Nan Drew Stories,' or 'Helen Hale Stories.'" Editors at Grosset & Dunlap preferred "Nan Drew" of these options, but decided to lengthen "Nan" to "Nancy". Stratemeyer accordingly began writing plot outlines and hired Mildred Wirt , later Mildred Wirt Benson, to ghostwrite
5190-434: A surrogate parent. As a teenager, she spends her time solving mysteries; some she stumbles upon, and some begin as cases of her father's. In the opening volumes, Nancy's closest friend is the somewhat flighty but fun-loving Helen Corning, but this character is quickly supplanted by the fifth book by her two long-term closest friends, cousins Elizabeth "Bess" Marvin and George Fayne . Bess is delicate and feminine, while George
5363-438: A tendency to write in images because that was all I knew at the time." Regarding his interest horror, he says "my childhood was pretty ordinary, except from a very early age, I wanted to be scared. I just did." He recalls showing his mother a story he copied out of a comic book. She responded: "I bet you could do better. Write one of your own." He recalls "an immense feeling of possibility at the idea, as if I had been ushered into
Stephen King - Misplaced Pages Continue
5536-417: A tin roof and rusty screen door: "No matter what time of day you looked out that screen door, it looked like sunset... When it rained, being inside the club was like being inside a Jamaican steel drum." King writes that "The use of simile and other figurative language is one of the chief delights of fiction—reading it and writing it, as well. [...] By comparing two seemingly unrelated objects—a restaurant bar and
5709-402: A variety of clothes for all social occasions, and an awareness of good housekeeping, is often praised for her seemingly masculine traits… she operates best independently, has the freedom and money to do as she pleases, and outside of a telephone call or two home, seems to live for solving mysteries rather than participating in family life." At the insistence of publishers Grosset & Dunlap ,
5882-504: A vast building filled with closed doors and had been given the key to open any I liked." King was a voracious reader in his youth: "I read everything from Nancy Drew to Psycho . My favorite was The Shrinking Man , by Richard Matheson —I was 8 when I found that." King asked a bookmobile driver, "Do you have any stories about how kids really are?" She gave him Lord of the Flies . It proved formative: "It was, so far as I can remember,
6055-415: A while it began to seem I was playing an interesting—to me, at least—game of literary racquet-ball: 'Salem's Lot itself was the ball and Dracula was the wall I kept hitting it against, watching to see how and where it could bounce, so I could hit it again. As a matter of fact, it took some pretty interesting bounces, and I ascribe this mostly to the fact that, while my ball existed in the twentieth century,
6228-563: A year or more often. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between liking and frequency of use (r=.79, p<.0001). Achievements in horror fiction are recognized by numerous awards. The Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker , author of the seminal horror novel Dracula . The Australian Horror Writers Association presents annual Australian Shadows Awards . The International Horror Guild Award
6401-610: Is Stephen King , known for Carrie , The Shining , It , Misery , and several dozen other novels and about 200 short stories . Beginning in the 1970s, King's stories have attracted a large audience, for which he was awarded by the U.S. National Book Foundation in 2003. Other popular horror authors of the period included Anne Rice , Shaun Hutson , Brian Lumley , Graham Masterton , James Herbert , Dean Koontz , Richard Laymon , Clive Barker , Ramsey Campbell , and Peter Straub . Best-selling book series of contemporary times exist in genres related to horror fiction, such as
6574-423: Is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which are in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon , in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length ... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces
6747-557: Is a successful lawyer), she maintains an active social, volunteer, and sleuthing schedule, as well as participating in athletics and the arts, but is never shown as working for a living or acquiring job skills. Nancy is affected neither by the Great Depression —although many of the characters in her early cases need assistance as they are poverty-stricken—nor World War II . Nancy lives with her lawyer father, Carson Drew, and their housekeeper , Hannah Gruen. Some critics prefer
6920-423: Is a tomboy. The two are very much opposites, although both are both loyal and devoted friends of Nancy, and usually end up assisting her in the solving of whatever mystery is at hand—Bess much more so than Helen, who is only glimpsed very, very occasionally in later volumes. Nancy is also occasionally joined by her boyfriend Ned Nickerson , a student at Emerson College , who is introduced in the seventh book. Nancy
7093-534: Is a werewolf story titled " Bisclavret ". The Countess Yolande commissioned a werewolf story titled " Guillaume de Palerme ". Anonymous writers penned two werewolf stories, "Biclarel" and " Melion ". Much horror fiction derives from the cruellest personages of the 15th century. Dracula can be traced to the Prince of Wallachia Vlad III , whose alleged war crimes were published in German pamphlets. A 1499 pamphlet
Stephen King - Misplaced Pages Continue
7266-721: Is about coming of age , a theme he has returned to several times, for example in Joyland . King often uses authors as characters, such as Ben Mears in 'Salem's Lot , Jack Torrance in The Shining , adult Bill Denbrough in It and Mike Noonan in Bag of Bones . He has extended this to breaking the fourth wall by including himself as a character in three novels of The Dark Tower . Among other things, this allows King to explore themes of authorship; George Stade writes that Misery "is
7439-415: Is almost as old as horror fiction itself. In 1826, the gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe published an essay distinguishing two elements of horror fiction, "terror" and "horror." Whereas terror is a feeling of dread that takes place before an event happens, horror is a feeling of revulsion or disgust after an event has happened. Radcliffe describes terror as that which "expands the soul and awakens the faculties to
7612-564: Is also able to travel freely about the United States, thanks in part to her car, which is a blue roadster in the original series and a blue convertible in the later books. Despite the trouble and presumed expense to which she goes to solve mysteries, Nancy never accepts monetary compensation; however, by implication, her expenses are often paid by a client of her father's as part of the costs of solving one of his cases. The character of Nancy Drew has gone through many permutations over
7785-403: Is also the heroine of a series of graphic novels, begun in 2005 and produced by Papercutz. The graphic novels are written by Stefan Petrucha and illustrated in manga -style artwork by Sho Murase. The character's graphic novel incarnation has been described as "a fun, sassy, modern-day teen who is still hot on the heels of criminals." When the 2007 film was released, a non-canon novelization of
7958-420: Is an adaptation of King's novella The Body , named his production company Castle Rock Entertainment after King's fictional town. Castle Rock Entertainment would produce other King adaptations, including Reiner's Misery (1990) and Frank Darabont 's The Shawshank Redemption (1994). In 1986, King made his directorial debut with Maximum Overdrive , an adaptation of his story " Trucks ". He recalls: "I
8131-486: Is consumed: To assess frequency of horror consumption, we asked respondents the following question: "In the past year, about how often have you used horror media (for example, horror literature, film, and video games) for entertainment?" 11.3% said "Never," 7.5% "Once," 28.9% "Several times," 14.1% "Once a month," 20.8% "Several times a month," 7.3% "Once a week," and 10.2% "Several times a week." Evidently, then, most respondents (81.3%) claimed to use horror media several times
8304-543: Is fear of the unknown." the first sentence from his seminal essay, " Supernatural Horror in Literature ". Science fiction historian Darrell Schweitzer has stated, "In the simplest sense, a horror story is one that scares us" and "the true horror story requires a sense of evil, not in necessarily in a theological sense; but the menaces must be truly menacing, life-destroying, and antithetical to happiness." In her essay "Elements of Aversion", Elizabeth Barrette articulates
8477-504: Is just fabulous at that, and also I tried to write more colloquially." Straub said the only person who could correctly identify who wrote which passages was a fellow author, Neil Gaiman . King and the photographer f-stop Fitzgerald collaborated on the coffee table book Nightmares in the Sky: Gargoyles and Grotesques (1988). He produced an artist's book with designer Barbara Kruger , My Pretty Pony (1989), published in
8650-399: Is merely one of many interpretations of the metaphor of Dracula. Jack Halberstam postulates many of these in his essay Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula . He writes: [The] image of dusty and unused gold, coins from many nations and old unworn jewels, immediately connects Dracula to the old money of a corrupt class, to a kind of piracy of nations and to the worst excesses of
8823-406: Is now a less perfect and therefore more likable being, one whom girls can more easily relate to – a better role model than the old Nancy because she can be emulated, rather than a "prissy automaton of perfection." Some, mostly fans, vociferously lament the changes, seeing Nancy as a silly, air-headed girl whose trivial adventures (such as discovering who squished the zucchini in 2004's Without
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#17327660327398996-467: Is often described as a super girl. In the words of Bobbie Ann Mason , she is "as immaculate and self-possessed as a Miss America on tour. She is as cool as a Rock Star and as sweet as Betty Crocker ." Nancy is well-off, attractive, and amazingly talented: At sixteen, she 'had studied psychology after and in school, and was familiar with the power of suggestion and association.' Nancy was a fine painter, spoke French, and had frequently run motorboats. She
9169-429: Is often dressed provocatively, in short skirts, shirts that reveal her stomach or cleavage, or a bathing suit. She is often pictured with an attentive, handsome boy in the background and frequently appears aware of and interested in that boy. The books emphasize character relationships, with Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson becoming more of an on-off couple and having other love interests that span multiple books. However, at
9342-402: Is set to release on May 27, 2025. King published five short novels— Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984)—under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. He explains: "I did that because back in the early days of my career there was a feeling in the publishing business that one book a year was all the public would accept...eventually
9515-415: Is small, a seashell. Sometimes it's enormous, a Tyrannosaurus Rex with all those gigantic ribs and grinning teeth. Either way, short story or thousand-page whopper of a novel, the techniques of excavation remain basically the same. King often starts with a "what-if" scenario, asking what would happen if an alcoholic writer was stranded with his family in a haunted hotel ( The Shining ), or if one could see
9688-438: Is small-town American life, often set in fictitious Derry, Maine; tales of family life, marital life, the lives of children banded together by age, circumstance, and urgency, where parents prove oblivious or helpless. The human heart in conflict with itself—in the guise of the malevolent Other. The ' gothic ' imagination magnifies the vicissitudes of 'real life' in order to bring it into a sharper and clearer focus." King's The Body
9861-401: Is tends to be inconclusive on the impact that viewing such media has. One defining trait of the horror genre is that it provokes an emotional, psychological , or physical response within readers that causes them to react with fear. One of H. P. Lovecraft's most famous quotes about the genre is that: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear
10034-449: Is the frame that makes the picture. His commitment, as I see it, is to celebrate and empower the everyday man and woman as they buy aspirin and cope with cancer. He takes our daily lives and makes them into something heroic. He takes our world, validates our distrust of it and then helps us to see that there's a chance to transcend the muck. He tells us that even if we fail in our struggles, we are still worthy enough to pass on our energies in
10207-423: Is the greatest phenomenon among all the fifty-centers. She is a best seller. How she crashed a Valhalla that had been rigidly restricted to the male of her species is a mystery even to her publishers." The earliest Nancy Drew books were published as dark-blue hardcovers with the titles stamped in orange lettering with dark-blue outlines and no other images on the cover. The covers went through several changes in
10380-485: Is unknown for sure why children enjoy these movies (as it seems counter-intuitive), it is theorized that it is, in part, grotesque monsters that fascinate kids. Tangential to this, the internalized impact of horror television programs and films on children is rather under-researched, especially when compared to the research done on the similar subject of violence in TV and film's impact on the young mind. What little research there
10553-401: Is very proud of her father and his work, and is unshakable in her respect and admiration for him. She loses her mother at the age of ten in the original versions and at the age of three in the later version. This loss is reflected in her early independence—running a household since the age of ten with Hannah clearly identified as a servant in the earlier series, who is however later referred to as
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#173276603273910726-602: The Super Mystery series, began in 1988. These books were in continuity with the similar Hardy Boys spin-off, The Hardy Boys Casefiles . In 1995, Nancy Drew finally goes to college in the Nancy Drew on Campus series. These books read more similar to soap opera books, such as the Sweet Valley High series. The On Campus books focus more on romance plots and also center around other characters;
10899-531: The Bram Stoker and August Derleth Awards. In 1999, he published The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon , about a girl who gets lost in the woods and finds solace in listening to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox games, and Hearts in Atlantis , a book of linked novellas and short stories about coming of age in the 1960s. Later that year, King was hospitalized after being hit by the driver of a van. Reflecting on
11072-548: The British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. King recalls "I got the best reviews in my life. And that was the first time that people thought, woah, this isn't really a horror thing." King struggled with addiction throughout the decade and often wrote under the influence of cocaine and alcohol; he says he "barely remembers writing" Cujo . In 1983, he published Christine , "A love triangle involving 17-year-old misfit Arnie Cunningham, his new girlfriend and
11245-475: The Girl Detective series drives a hybrid car , uses a mobile phone, and recounts her mysteries in the first person . Since the series is set in the 21st century, several technologies and pop-culture references exist. Many applaud these changes, arguing that Nancy has not changed at all other than learning to use a cell phone. Others praise the series as more realistic; Nancy, these commentators argue,
11418-496: The Girl Detective series, Diaries features themes of environmentalism. This is the first series to be available in three different formats: paperback, hardcover (with dust jacket), and eBooks. Consistent with other Stratemeyer Syndicate properties, the Nancy Drew novels were written by various writers, all under the pen name Carolyn Keene. Following the customs of Stratemeyer Syndicate series production, ghostwriters for
11591-529: The Hardy Boys series (although the first volumes were not published until 1927), which was such a success that he decided on a similar series for girls, featuring an amateur girl detective as the heroine. While Stratemeyer believed that a woman's place was in the home, he was aware that the Hardy Boys books were popular with girl readers and wished to capitalize on girls' interest in mysteries by offering
11764-485: The anti-war novel Sword in the Darkness , still unpublished. King recalls the origin of his debut novel , Carrie : "Two unrelated ideas, adolescent cruelty and telekinesis, came together." It began as a short story intended for Cavalier ; King tossed the first three pages in the trash but his wife, Tabitha , recovered them, saying she wanted to know what happened next. He followed her advice and expanded it into
11937-575: The werewolf fiction urban fantasy Kitty Norville books by Carrie Vaughn (2005 onward). Horror elements continue to expand outside the genre. The alternate history of more traditional historical horror in Dan Simmons 's 2007 novel The Terror sits on bookstore shelves next to genre mash ups such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), and historical fantasy and horror comics such as Hellblazer (1993 onward) and Mike Mignola 's Hellboy (1993 onward). Horror also serves as one of
12110-572: The 1950s satisfied readers' quests for horror imagery that the silver screen could not provide. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence, they were frequently censored. The modern zombie tale dealing with the motif of the living dead harks back to works including H. P. Lovecraft's stories " Cool Air " (1925), "In The Vault" (1926), and " The Outsider " (1926), and Dennis Wheatley 's "Strange Conflict" (1941). Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954) influenced an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematized by
12283-421: The 1980s and '90s." Stratemeyer edited the first three volumes, and Harriet Adams edited most subsequent volumes until she died in 1982. In 1959, the earlier titles were revised, largely by Adams. From the late 1950s until she died in 1982, Adams herself wrote the manuscripts for most of the books. After Adams' death, series production was overseen by Nancy Axelrad (who also wrote several volumes). The rights to
12456-529: The 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters , the 2007 Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the 2014 National Medal of Arts . Joyce Carol Oates called King "a brilliantly rooted, psychologically 'realistic' writer for whom the American scene has been a continuous source of inspiration, and American popular culture a vast cornucopia of possibilities." King
12629-460: The Bullet , "the world's first mass e-book, with more than 500,000 downloads". Inspired by its success, he began publishing an epistolary horror novel, The Plant , in online installments using the pay what you want method. He suggested readers pay $ 1 per installment, and said he'd only continue publishing if 75% of readers paid. When The Plant folded, the public assumed that King had abandoned
12802-437: The Nancy Drew books were revised in 1959 to make them more modern and eliminate racist stereotypes . Although Harriet Adams felt that these changes were unnecessary, she oversaw a complete overhaul of the series, as well as writing new volumes in keeping with the new guidelines laid down by Grosset & Dunlap. The series did not so much eliminate racial stereotypes, however, as eliminate non-white characters. For example, in
12975-525: The Nancy of these volumes, largely written by Mildred Benson. Benson is credited with "[breathing]… a feisty spirit into Nancy's character." The original Nancy Drew is sometimes claimed: "to be a lot like [Benson] herself – confident, competent, and totally independent, quite unlike the cardboard character that [Edward] Stratemeyer had outlined." This original Nancy is frequently outspoken and authoritative, so much so that Edward Stratemeyer told Benson that
13148-638: The Noble Grecians and Romans in the account of Cimon , the author describes the spirit of a murderer , Damon, who himself was murdered in a bathhouse in Chaeronea . Pliny the Younger (61 to c. 113) tells the tale of Athenodorus Cananites , who bought a haunted house in Athens . Athenodorus was cautious since the house seemed inexpensive. While writing a book on philosophy, he was visited by
13321-596: The Ripper , and lesser so, Carl Panzram , Fritz Haarman , and Albert Fish , all perpetuated this phenomenon. The trend continued in the postwar era, partly renewed after the murders committed by Ed Gein . In 1959, Robert Bloch , inspired by the murders, wrote Psycho . The crimes committed in 1969 by the Manson Family influenced the slasher theme in horror fiction of the 1970s. In 1981, Thomas Harris wrote Red Dragon , introducing Dr. Hannibal Lecter . In 1988,
13494-484: The Syndicate in 1931: "Can you let us have the manuscript as soon as possible, and no later than July 10? There will only be three or four titles brought out then, and Nancy Drew is one of the most important." The 6,000 copies that Macy's ordered for the 1933 Christmas season sold out within days. In 1934, Fortune featured the Syndicate in a cover story and singled Nancy Drew out for particular attention: "Nancy
13667-413: The Syndicate signed contracts that have sometimes been interpreted as requiring authors to sign away all rights to authorship or future royalties. Contracts stated that authors could not use their Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonyms independently of the Syndicate. In the early days of the Syndicate, ghostwriters were paid a fee of $ 125, "roughly equivalent to two months' wages for a typical newspaper reporter,
13840-604: The University of Maine, King earned a certificate to teach high school but was unable to find a teaching post immediately. He sold short stories to magazines like Cavalier . Many of these early stories were republished in Night Shift (1978). In 1971, King was hired as an English teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine . He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels, including
14013-881: The Wanderer (1820), Washington Irving 's " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow " (1820), Jane C. Loudon 's The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827), Victor Hugo 's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), Thomas Peckett Prest 's Varney the Vampire (1847), the works of Edgar Allan Poe , the works of Sheridan Le Fanu , Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's " Lot No. 249 " (1892), H. G. Wells ' The Invisible Man (1897), and Bram Stoker 's Dracula (1897). Each of these works created an enduring icon of horror seen in later re-imaginings on
14186-422: The aristocracy. Halberstram articulates a view of Dracula as manifesting the growing perception of the aristocracy as an evil and outdated notion to be defeated. The depiction of a multinational band of protagonists using the latest technologies (such as a telegraph ) to quickly share, collate, and act upon new information is what leads to the destruction of the vampire. This is one of many interpretations of
14359-410: The author. There are many theories as to why people enjoy being scared. For example, "people who like horror films are more likely to score highly for openness to experience, a personality trait linked to intellect and imagination." It is a now commonly accepted view that the horror elements of Dracula 's portrayal of vampirism are metaphors for sexuality in a repressed Victorian era . But this
14532-471: The basis for his first nonfiction book, Danse Macabre . In 1979, he published The Dead Zone , about an ordinary man gifted with second sight . It was the first of his novels to take place in Castle Rock, Maine . King later reflected that with The Dead Zone , "I really hit my stride." In 1982, King published Different Seasons , a collection of four novellas with a more serious dramatic bent than
14705-589: The central genres in more complex modern works such as Mark Z. Danielewski 's House of Leaves (2000), a finalist for the National Book Award . There are many horror novels for children and teens, such as R. L. Stine 's Goosebumps series or The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey . Additionally, many movies for young audiences, particularly animated ones, use horror aesthetics and conventions (for example, ParaNorman ). These are what can be collectively referred to as "children's horror". Although it
14878-583: The character have been met with mixed reviews, while the video games by HeR Interactive have often been lauded. The character proves continuously popular worldwide; at least 80 million copies of the books have been sold, and the books have been translated into over 45 languages. A cultural icon , Nancy Drew is cited as a formative influence by several women, from Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Sonia Sotomayor to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former First Lady Laura Bush . Feminist literary critics have analyzed
15051-483: The character over Superman . In 2010, DC Comics premiered American Vampire , a comic book series co-written by King and Scott Snyder and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque . King wrote the backstory of the first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issues story arc. In On Writing , King recalls: When, during the course of an interview for The New Yorker , I told the interviewer (Mark Singer) that I believed stories are found things, like fossils in
15224-455: The character was "much too flip, and would never be well received." The editors at Grosset & Dunlap disagreed, but Benson also faced criticism from her next Stratemeyer Syndicate editor, Harriet Adams , who felt that Benson should make Nancy's character more "sympathetic, kind-hearted and lovable." In Benson's words, Adams repeatedly asked Benson to "make the sleuth less bold… 'Nancy said' became 'Nancy said sweetly,' 'she said kindly,' and
15397-483: The character were sold in 1984, along with the Stratemeyer Syndicate itself, to Simon & Schuster . Book packager Mega-Books subsequently hired authors to write the main Nancy Drew series and a new series, The Nancy Drew Files . In 1980, Harriet Adams switched publishers to Simon & Schuster, dissatisfied with the lack of creative control at Grosset & Dunlap and the lack of publicity for
15570-434: The character's enduring appeal, arguing variously that Nancy Drew is a mythic heroine, an expression of wish fulfillment , or an embodiment of contradictory ideas about femininity. Nancy Drew is a fictional amateur detective. She is originally depicted as a blonde-haired and blue-eyed 16-year-old high school graduate, but in later editions is rewritten as a titian-haired and blue-eyed 18-year-old graduate and detective. In
15743-463: The collection Just After Sunset . In 2009, it was announced he would serve as a writer for Fangoria . King's novel Under the Dome was published later that year, and debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List . Janet Maslin said of it, "Hard as this thing is to hoist, it's even harder to put down." In 2010, King published Full Dark, No Stars , a collection of four novellas with
15916-456: The common theme of retribution. In 2011, he published 11/22/63 , about a time portal leading to 1958, and an English teacher who travels through it to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination . Errol Morris called it "one of the best time travel stories since H. G. Wells ". In 2013, he published Joyland , his second book for Hard Case Crime. Later that year, he published Doctor Sleep ,
16089-399: The confrontation of ideas that readers and characters would "rather ignore" throughout literature in famous moments such as Hamlet 's musings about the skull of Yorick , its implications of the mortality of humanity, and the gruesome end that bodies inevitably come to. In horror fiction, the confrontation with the gruesome is often a metaphor for the problems facing the current generation of
16262-456: The contrary, I want them to do things their way. In some instances, the outcome is what I visualized. In most, however, it's something I never expected." Joyce Carol Oates called King "both a storyteller and an inventor of startling images and metaphors, which linger long in the memory." An example of King's imagery is seen in The Body when the narrator recalls a childhood clubhouse with
16435-516: The doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we're still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts." Joyce Carol Oates said that "Stephen King's characteristic subject
16608-411: The early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Particularly, the venerated horror author H. P. Lovecraft , and his enduring Cthulhu Mythos transformed and popularized the genre of cosmic horror , and M. R. James is credited with redefining the ghost story in that era. The serial murderer became a recurring theme. Yellow journalism and sensationalism of various murderers, such as Jack
16781-457: The early years: leaving the orange lettering with no outline and adding an orange silhouette of Nancy peering through a magnifying glass; then changing to a lighter blue board with dark blue lettering and silhouette; then changing the position of the title and silhouette on the front with black lettering and a more "modern" silhouette. Nancy Drew is depicted as an independent-minded 16-year-old who has already completed her high school education (16
16954-582: The editorship of Edward L. Ferman , from 1977 to 1981. It grew into an eight-volume epic, The Dark Tower , published between 1978 and 2012. King co-wrote two novels with Peter Straub , The Talisman (1984) and Black House (2001). Straub recalls that "We tried to make it as difficult as possible for readers to identify who wrote what. Eventually, we were able to successfully imitate each other's style... Steve threw in more commas or clauses, and I kind of made things more simple in sentence structure. And I tried to make things as vivid as I could because Steve
17127-575: The end of World War II , living in a modest house in Scarborough. He is of Scots-Irish descent. When King was two, his father left the family. His mother raised him and his older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. They moved from Scarborough and depended on relatives in Chicago, Illinois ; Croton-on-Hudson; West De Pere, Wisconsin ; Fort Wayne, Indiana ; Malden, Massachusetts ; and Stratford, Connecticut . When King
17300-401: The end of the last book in the series, statements imply that Nancy keeps dating Ned. The end of the book Murder on Ice strongly implies that Nancy and Ned engage in sexual intercourse (at the very least, they go into a Jacuzzi together). Nancy also becomes more vulnerable, being often chloroformed into unconsciousness, or defenseless against chokeholds . Furthermore, the minor thefts of
17473-496: The energy of a girl shot out of a cannon, Nancy bends conventions and acts out every girl's fantasies of power." Other commentators see Nancy as "a paradox—which may be why feminists can laud her as a formative 'girl power' icon and conservatives can love her well-scrubbed middle-class values." The character was conceived by Edward Stratemeyer , founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate . In 1926, Stratemeyer created
17646-405: The excitement of living on the edge, the tension between hunter and hunted. So we told each other stories through the long, dark nights. when the fires burned low, we did our best to scare the daylights out of each other. The rush of adrenaline feels good. Our hearts pound, our breath quickens, and we can imagine ourselves on the edge. Yet we also appreciate the insightful aspects of horror. Sometimes
17819-404: The films of George A. Romero . In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the enormous commercial success of three books - Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin , The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty , and The Other by Thomas Tryon - encouraged publishers to begin releasing numerous other horror novels, thus creating a "horror boom". One of the best-known late-20th century horror writers
17992-853: The first Nancy Drew spin-off, titled The Nancy Drew Files . However, after the above-mentioned two Mystery Stories books, as implied in The Double Horror of Fenley Place , Nancy appears to be dating Ned again and the series continues without any reference to Nancy dating other guys in The Bluebeard Room or in The Phantom of Venice . The Nancy Drew character in the Files series has earned mixed reviews among fans. Some, including sex-positive feminists , contend that Nancy's character becomes "more like Mildred Wirt Benson's original heroine than any [version] since 1956." Others criticize
18165-467: The first book with hands—strong ones that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat. It said to me, 'This is not just entertainment; it's life or death.'... To me, Lord of the Flies has always represented what novels are for, why they are indispensable." He attended Durham Elementary School and entered Lisbon High School in Lisbon Falls, Maine , in 1962. He contributed to Dave's Rag ,
18338-427: The first volumes in the series under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene . Subsequent titles have been written by several ghostwriters under the same pseudonym . The first four titles were published in 1930 and were an immediate success. Exact sales figures are not available for the years before 1979. Still, an indication of the books' popularity can be seen in a letter that Laura Harris, a Grosset and Dunlap editor, wrote to
18511-914: The gradual development of Romanticism and the Gothic horror genre. It drew on the written and material heritage of the Late Middle Ages, finding its form with Horace Walpole 's seminal and controversial 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto . In fact, the first edition was published disguised as an actual medieval romance from Italy, discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. Once revealed as modern, many found it anachronistic , reactionary , or simply in poor taste, but it proved immediately popular. Otranto inspired Vathek (1786) by William Beckford , A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), The Italian (1796) by Ann Radcliffe , and The Monk (1797) by Matthew Lewis . A significant amount of horror fiction of this era
18684-399: The ground, he said that he didn't believe me. I replied that that was fine, as long as he believed that I believe it. And I do. Stories aren't souvenir tee-shirts or GameBoys. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible. Sometimes the fossil you uncover
18857-446: The horror fiction for which he had become famous. Alan Cheuse wrote "Each of the first three novellas has its hypnotic moments, and the last one is a horrifying little gem." Three of the four novellas were adapted as films: The Body as Stand by Me (1986); Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption as The Shawshank Redemption (1994); and Apt Pupil as the film of the same name (1998). The fourth, The Breathing Method , won
19030-399: The incident, he said "it occurs to me that I have nearly been killed by a character out of one of my own novels. It's almost funny." He said his nurses were "told in no uncertain terms, don't make any Misery jokes". In 2000, King published On Writing , a mix of memoir and style manual which The Wall Street Journal called "a one-of-a-kind classic". Later that year he published Riding
19203-421: The kitchen in early stories, became less a servant and more a mother surrogate. Critics saw this Nancy of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as an improvement in some ways, a step back in others: "In these new editions, an array of elements had been modified… and most of the more overt elements of racism had been excised. In an often overlooked alteration, however, the tomboyish nature ature of the text's title character
19376-427: The like, all designed to produce a less abrasive, more caring character." Many readers and commentators, however, admire Nancy's original outspoken character. A prominent critic of the Nancy Drew character, at least the Nancy of these early Nancy Drew stories, is mystery writer Bobbie Ann Mason . Mason contends that Nancy owes her popularity largely to "the appeal of her high-class advantages." Mason also criticizes
19549-825: The manuscript. Edward Stratemeyer and his daughters Harriet Adams and Edna Stratemeyer Squier wrote most of the outlines for the original Nancy Drew series until 1979. Volume 30, The Clue of the Velvet Mask (1953), was outlined by Andrew Svenson . Usually, other writers wrote the manuscripts. Most of the early volumes were written by Mildred Wirt Benson . Other volumes were written by Walter Karig , George Waller, Jr. , Margaret Scherf , Wilhelmina Rankin , Alma Sasse , Charles S. Strong , Iris Vinton , and Patricia Doll . Later titles were penned by Nancy Axelrad , Sharon Wagner , and James Duncan Lawrence , and according to Book Riot , Carol Gorman , Ellen Steiber , and Alison Hart Edward "each wrote several Nancy Drews in
19722-449: The metaphor of only one central figure of the canon of horror fiction, as over a dozen possible metaphors are referenced in the analysis, from the religious to the antisemitic . Noël Carroll 's Philosophy of Horror postulates that a modern piece of horror fiction's " monster ", villain , or a more inclusive menace must exhibit the following two traits: In addition to those essays and articles shown above, scholarship on horror fiction
19895-399: The miniseries Rose Red (2002); The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (2001) was written by Ridley Pearson and published anonymously as a tie-in for the series. He also developed Kingdom Hospital (2004), based on Lars von Trier 's The Kingdom . King collaborated with Stan Winston and Mick Garris on the music video Michael Jackson's Ghosts (1996). He co-wrote
20068-457: The movie was written to look like the older books. A new book was written for each of the Girl Detective and Clue Crew series, which deal with a mystery on a movie set. In 2008, the Girl Detective series was re-branded into trilogies with a model on the cover. These mysteries became deeper, with the mystery often spread across three books and multiple culprits. These trilogies also met with negative fan reception due to Nancy's constant mistakes,
20241-496: The mummy, the giant creatures that ate up New York in the old B movies. Put 'em all in there." These influences coalesced into It , about a shapeshifting monster that takes the form of its victims' fears and haunts the town of Derry, Maine. He said he thought he was done writing about monsters, and wanted to "bring on all the monsters one last time…and call it It." It won the August Derleth Award in 1987. 1987
20414-477: The musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2012) with T. Bone Burnett and John Mellencamp . A soundtrack album was released, featuring Taj Mahal , Elvis Costello and Rosanne Cash , among others. In 1985, King wrote a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men . He wrote the introduction to Batman No. 400, an anniversary issue where he expressed his preference for
20587-462: The mysteries are merely used as subplots. By reader request, Nancy broke off her long-term relationship with boyfriend Ned Nickerson in the second volume of the series, On Her Own (1995). Similar to the Files series, reception for the On Campus series was also mixed, with some critics viewing the inclusion of adult themes such as date rape as "unsuccessful". Carolyn Carpan commented that
20760-560: The need by some for horror tales in a modern world: The old "fight or flight" reaction of our evolutionary heritage once played a major role in the life of every human. Our ancestors lived and died by it. Then someone invented the fascinating game of civilization, and things began to calm down. Development pushed wilderness back from settled lands. War, crime, and other forms of social violence came with civilization and humans started preying on each other, but by and large daily life calmed down. We began to feel restless, to feel something missing:
20933-511: The new series. The books read are drastically different from the preceding novels of the past 55 years. For example, The Phantom of Venice (1985) opens with Nancy wondering in italics, " Am I or am I not in love with Ned Nickerson? " Nancy begins dating other young men and acknowledges sexual desires: "'I saw [you kissing him]… You don't have to apologize to me if some guy turns you on.' 'Gianni doesn't turn me on!… Won't you please let me explain.'" The next year, Simon & Schuster launched
21106-411: The newspaper his brother printed with a mimeograph machine , and later sold stories to his friends. His first independently published story was " I Was a Teenage Grave Robber ", serialized over four issues of the fanzine Comics Review in 1965. He was a sports reporter for Lisbon's Weekly Enterprise . In 1966, King entered the University of Maine at Orono on a scholarship. While there, he wrote for
21279-577: The novel Fairy Tale . Holly , about Holly Gibney was released in September 2023. In November 2023, the short story collection You Like It Darker , featuring twelve stories (seven previously published and five unreleased) was published by Scribner in May 2024. The book debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times fiction best-seller list for the week ending May 25, 2024. King announced an upcoming novel named Never Flinch on November 18, 2024. The novel
21452-470: The novel was influenced by his experiences with addiction: "Annie was my drug problem, and she was my number-one fan. God, she never wanted to leave." He published The Tommyknockers , a science fiction novel filled, he says, with metaphors for addiction. After the book was published, King's wife staged an intervention, and he agreed to seek treatment for addiction. Two years later, he published The Dark Half , about an author whose literary alter-ego takes on
21625-496: The ocean floor; those coffee spoons), and William Carlos Williams (white chickens, red wheelbarrow, the plums that were in the ice box, so sweet and so cold)." King has called Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most". Other influences include Ray Bradbury , Joseph Payne Brennan , James M. Cain , Jack Finney , Graham Greene , Elmore Leonard , John D. MacDonald , Don Robertson and Thomas Williams . He often pays homage to classic horror stories by retelling them in
21798-462: The old-fashioned way. I must confess, though, that I love it." In the revised 1975 version, Beulah is changed to Anna, a "plump, smiling housekeeper". Many other changes were relatively minor. The new books were bound in yellow with color illustrations on the front covers. Nancy's age was raised from 16 to 18, her mother was said to have died when Nancy was three, rather than ten, and other small changes were made. Housekeeper Hannah Gruen, sent off to
21971-510: The original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories , tried to claim rights with the Library of Congress in 1933, the Syndicate instructed the Library of Congress not to reveal the names of any Nancy Drew authors, a move with which the Library of Congress complied. The Syndicate's process for creating the Nancy Drew books consisted of creating a detailed plot outline, drafting a manuscript, and editing
22144-445: The original books are replaced by murders and murder attempts, and Nancy is frequently in mortal danger. In an extreme example, in the book Deadly Doubles , the fate of an entire nation and millions of lives are at stake, a character is tortured and strangled off-screen, and Nancy and her allies are nearly killed on five separate occasions. The Files also launched its spin-off. A crossover spin-off series with The Hardy Boys , titled
22317-468: The original version of The Hidden Window Mystery (1956), Nancy visits friends in the South whose African-American servant, "lovable old Beulah… serves squabs, sweet potatoes, corn pudding, piping hot biscuits, and strawberry shortcake." The house mistress waits until Beulah has left the room and then says to Nancy, "I try to make things easier for Beulah, but she insists on cooking and serving everything
22490-424: The outcome of future events ( The Dead Zone ), or if one could travel in time to alter the course of history ( 11/22/63 ). He writes that "The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured, to begin with—come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded a set of characters that they do things my way. On
22663-424: The page, stage, and screen. A proliferation of cheap periodicals around the turn of the century led to a boom in horror writing. For example, Gaston Leroux serialized his Le Fantôme de l'Opéra before it became a novel in 1910. One writer who specialized in horror fiction for mainstream pulps, such as All-Story Magazine , was Tod Robbins , whose fiction deals with themes of madness and cruelty. In Russia,
22836-421: The people in it may be make believe but I need to ask myself over and over if I've told the truth about the way real people would behave in a similar situation... We understand that fiction is a lie to begin with. To ignore the truth inside the lie is to sin against the craft, in general, and one's own work in particular." In On Writing , King says "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all: read
23009-527: The permutations of Nancy Drew, finding Nancy to be simply a good role model for girls. Despite revisions, "What hasn't changed, however, are [Nancy's] basic values, her goals, her humility, and her magical gift for having at least nine lives. For more than six decades, her essence has remained intact." Nancy is a "teen detective queen" who "offers girl readers something more than action-packed adventure: she gives them something original. Convention has it that girls are passive, respectful, and emotional, but with
23182-548: The person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. European horror-fiction became established through works of the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans . Mary Shelley 's well-known 1818 novel about Frankenstein was greatly influenced by the story of Hippolytus , whom Asclepius revives from death. Euripides wrote plays based on the story, Hippolytos Kalyptomenos and Hippolytus . In Plutarch 's The Lives of
23355-493: The present day while still containing the same basic formula and style of the books during the Syndicate. In 1985, as the sale of the Stratemeyer Syndicate to Simon & Schuster was finalized, Simon & Schuster wanted to launch a spin-off series that focused on more mature mysteries and incorporated romance into the stories. To test whether this would work, the final two novels before the sale, The Bluebeard Room and The Phantom of Venice , were used as backdoor pilots for
23528-405: The primary day job of the syndicate ghosts." During the Great Depression , this fee was lowered to $ 100 and eventually $ 75. All royalties went to the Syndicate, and all correspondence with the publisher was handled through a Syndicate office. The Syndicate was able to enlist the cooperation of libraries in hiding the ghostwriters' names; when Walter Karig , who wrote volumes eight through ten of
23701-595: The project because sales were unsuccessful, but King later said he had simply run out of stories. The unfinished novel is still available from King's official site, now free. In 2002, King published From a Buick 8 , a return to the territory of Christine . In 2005, he published the mystery The Colorado Kid for the Hard Case Crime imprint. In 2006, he published Cell , in which a mysterious signal broadcast over cell phones turns users into mindless killers. That same year, he published Lisey's Story , about
23874-657: The pseudonym Richard Bachman and has co-written works with other authors, notably his friend Peter Straub and sons Joe Hill and Owen King . He has also written nonfiction, notably Danse Macabre (1981) and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000). Among other awards, King has won the O. Henry Award for " The Man in the Black Suit " (1994) and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller for 11/22/63 (2011). He has also won honors for his overall contributions to literature, including
24047-547: The public got wise to this because you can change your name but you can't really disguise your style." Bachman's surname is derived from the band Bachman–Turner Overdrive and his first name is a nod to Richard Stark, the pseudonym Donald E. Westlake used to publish his darker work. The Bachman books are grittier than King's usual fare; King called his alter-ego "Dark-toned, despairing...not a very nice guy." A Literary Guild member praised Thinner as "what Stephen King would write like if Stephen King could really write." Bachman
24220-510: The revision process, the heroine's original character was changed to be less unruly and violent. In the 1980s, an older and more professional Nancy emerged in a new series, The Nancy Drew Files , that included romantic subplots for the sleuth. Launched in 2004, the Nancy Drew: Girl Detective series features Nancy driving a hybrid electric vehicle and using a cell phone. In 2012, the Girl Detective series ended, and
24393-521: The sequel to that novel, The Silence of the Lambs , was published. Early cinema was inspired by many aspects of horror literature, and started a strong tradition of horror films and subgenres that continues to this day. Up until the graphic depictions of violence and gore on the screen commonly associated with 1960s and 1970s slasher films and splatter films , comic books such as those published by EC Comics (most notably Tales From The Crypt ) in
24566-431: The series for its increasing incorporation of romance and "[dilution] of pre-feminist moxie ." One reviewer noticed, "Millie [Mildred Wirt Benson] purists tend to look askance upon the Files series, in which fleeting pecks bestowed on Nancy by her longtime steady, Ned Nickerson, give way to lingering embraces in a Jacuzzi." Cover art for Files titles, such as Hit and Run Holiday (1986), reflects these changes; Nancy
24739-442: The series for its racism and classism, arguing that Nancy is the upper-class WASP defender of a "fading aristocracy, threatened by the restless lower classes." Mason further contends that the "most appealing elements of these daredevil girl sleuth adventure books are (secretly) of this kind: tea and fancy cakes, romantic settings, food eaten in quaint places (never a Ho-Jo's ), delicious pauses that refresh, old-fashioned picnics in
24912-954: The series often travels to faraway locations, such as France in The Mystery of the 99 Steps (1966), Lima in The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (1967), Nairobi in The Spider Sapphire Mystery (1968), Istanbul in " The Mysterious Mannequin " (1970), Austria in Captive Witness (1981), Japan in The Runaway Bride (1994), Costa Rica in Scarlet Macaw Scandal (2004), and Alaska in Curse of The Arctic Star (2013). Nancy
25085-419: The series until she died in 1982. After her death, Adams' protégés, Nancy Axelrad and Lilo Wuenn, and her three children oversaw the Nancy Drew books and other Stratemeyer Syndicate series production. In 1985, the five sold the Syndicate and all rights to Simon & Schuster . Simon & Schuster turned to book packager Mega-Books for new writers. These books continued to have the characters solve mysteries in
25258-449: The series was "more soap opera romance than mystery" and that Nancy "comes across as dumb, missing easy clues she wouldn't have missed in previous series". The series was also criticized for focusing more on romance than on grades or studying, with one critic stating that the series resembled collegiate academic studying in the 1950s, where "women were more interested in pursuing… the 'MRS' degree ." In 1997, Simon & Schuster announced
25431-432: The series, she lives in the fictional town of River Heights with her father, attorney Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. Carson is very successful in his job, and is often called away on business for days or even weeks at a time, leaving Nancy on her own—and when this happens, he is always shown to have complete faith and trust in Nancy's ability to look after herself, and to solve mysteries. Nancy for her part
25604-576: The short story " The Fifth Quarter " was published under the name John Swithen (a Carrie character) in Cavalier . Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the World of The Dark Tower was published in 2016 under the pseudonym Beryl Evans and illustrated by Ned Dameron . It is adapted from a fictional book central to the plot of King's The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands . In the late 1970s, King began
25777-545: The shortness of the books, and the lack of action. With the new trilogy format, sales began slipping. In 2010, Simon & Schuster cut back from six to four Nancy Drew books per year. In December 2011, they announced that the series was canceled along with the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers . With the cancellation of the Girl Detective series, the Diaries series began in 2013, following
25950-497: The student newspaper, The Maine Campus , and found mentors in the professors Edward Holmes and Burton Hatlen . King participated in a writing workshop organized by Hatlen, where he fell in love with Tabitha Spruce . King graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, and his daughter Naomi Rachel was born that year. King and Spruce wed in 1971. King paid tribute to Hatlen: "Burt was the greatest English teacher I ever had. It
26123-451: The survival of humanity." In his acceptance speech for the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, King said: " Frank Norris , the author of McTeague , said something like this: 'What should I care if they, i.e., the critics, single me out for sneers and laughter? I never truckled, I never lied. I told the truth.' And that's always been the bottom line for me. The story and
26296-438: The term, considering it too lurid. They instead use the terms dark fantasy or Gothic fantasy for supernatural horror, or " psychological thriller " for non-supernatural horror. Nancy Drew Over the decades, the character has evolved in response to changes in American culture and tastes. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised and shortened, partly to lower the printing costs, with arguable success. In
26469-530: The time ' Salem's Lot was published. After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado . He paid a visit to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park which provided the basis for The Shining , about an alcoholic writer and his family taking care of a hotel for the winter. King's family returned to Auburn, Maine in 1975, where he completed The Stand , an apocalyptic novel about
26642-469: The wall was very much a product of the nineteenth." Similarly, King's Revival is a modern riff on Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein . King dedicated it to "the people who built my house": Shelley, Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft , Clark Ashton Smith , Donald Wandrei , Fritz Leiber , August Derleth , Shirley Jackson , Robert Bloch , Straub and Arthur Machen , "whose short novel The Great God Pan has haunted me all my life". Horror novels Horror
26815-556: The widow of a novelist. He calls it his favorite of his novels, because "I've always felt that marriage creates its own secret world, and only in a long marriage can two people at least approach real knowledge about each other. I wanted to write about that, and felt that I actually got close to what I really wanted to say." In 2007, King served as guest editor for the annual anthology The Best American Short Stories . In 2008, King published Duma Key , his first novel set in Florida, and
26988-492: The woods, precious jewels, and heirlooms… The word dainty is a subversive affirmation of a feminized universe." At the bottom, says Mason, the character of Nancy Drew is that of a girl who can be "perfect" because she is "free, white, and sixteen" and whose "stories seem to satisfy two standards – adventure and domesticity. But adventure is the superstructure, domesticity the bedrock." Others argue that "Nancy, despite her traditionally feminine attributes, such as good looks,
27161-473: The writer Alexander Belyaev popularized these themes in his story Professor Dowell's Head (1925), in which a mad doctor performs experimental head transplants and reanimations on bodies stolen from the morgue and which was first published as a magazine serial before being turned into a novel. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, prominent among them was Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds . Influential horror writers of
27334-437: The years. The Nancy Drew mystery series was revised beginning in 1959, with commentators agreeing that Nancy's character changed significantly from the original Nancy of the books written in the 1930s and 1940s. Observers also often see a difference between the Nancy Drew of the original series, the Nancy of The Nancy Drew Files , and the Nancy of Girl Detective series. Nevertheless, some find no significant difference among
27507-443: Was 11, his family moved to Durham, Maine , where his mother cared for her parents until their deaths. After that, she became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged. King says he started writing when he was "about six or seven, just copying panels out of comic books and then making up my own stories ... Film was also a major influence. I loved the movies from the start. So when I started to write, I had
27680-491: Was a skilled driver who, at sixteen, 'flashed into the garage with a skill born of long practice.' The prodigy was a sure shot, an excellent swimmer, a skillful oarsman, an expert seamstress, a gourmet cook, and a fine bridge player. Nancy brilliantly played tennis and golf and rode like a cowboy. Nancy danced like Ginger Rogers and could administer first aid like the Mayo brothers. Nancy never lacks money, and in later volumes of
27853-546: Was also tamed." Nancy becomes much more respectful of male authority figures in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, leading some to claim that the revised Nancy becomes too agreeable and less distinctive, writing of her, "In the revised books, Nancy is relentlessly upbeat, puts up with her father's increasingly protective tendencies, and, when asked if she goes to church in the 1969 The Clue of the Tapping Heels , replies, 'As often as I can." Harriet Adams continued to oversee
28026-456: Was an unusually productive year for King. He published The Eyes of the Dragon , a high fantasy novel which he originally wrote for his daughter. He published Misery , about a popular writer who is injured in a car wreck and held captive by Annie Wilkes, his self-described "number-one fan". Misery shared the inaugural Bram Stoker Award with Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon . King says
28199-650: Was born in Portland, Maine , on September 21, 1947. His father, Donald Edwin King, a traveling vacuum salesman after returning from World War II , was born in Indiana with the surname Pollock, changing it to King as an adult. King's mother was Nellie Ruth King (née Pillsbury). His parents were married in Scarborough, Maine , on July 23, 1939. They lived with Donald's family in Chicago before moving to Croton-on-Hudson, New York . King's parents returned to Maine towards
28372-541: Was coked out of my mind all through its production, and really didn't know what I was doing." It was neither a critical nor a commercial success; King was nominated for a Golden Raspberry for Worst Director, but lost to Prince , for Under the Cherry Moon . In the 1990s, King wrote several miniseries: Golden Years (1991), The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997) and Storm of the Century (1999). He wrote
28545-434: Was exposed as King's pseudonym in 1985 by Steve Brown, a Washington, D.C. bookstore clerk who noticed stylistic similarities between King and Bachman and located publisher's records at the Library of Congress that named King as the author of Rage . King announced Bachman's death from "cancer of the pseudonym". King reflected that "Richard Bachman began his career not as a delusion but as a sheltered place where I could publish
28718-451: Was he who first showed me the way to the pool, which he called 'the language pool, the myth-pool, where we all go down to drink.' That was in 1968. I have trod the path that leads there often in the years since, and I can think of no better place to spend one's days; the water is still sweet, and the fish still swim." King sold his first professional short story, " The Glass Floor ", to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. After graduating from
28891-471: Was part of a trilogy; the sequel, Finders Keepers , was published in 2015. The third book of the trilogy, End of Watch , was released in 2016. In 2018, he released The Outsider , which features the character Holly Gibney , and the novella Elevation . In 2019, he released The Institute . In 2020, King released If It Bleeds , a collection of four novellas. In 2021, he published Later , his third book for Hard Case Crime. In 2022, King released
29064-545: Was presented annually to works of horror and dark fantasy from 1995 to 2008. The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic works. Other important awards for horror literature are included as subcategories within general awards for fantasy and science fiction in such awards as the Aurealis Award . Some writers of fiction normally classified as "horror" tend to dislike
29237-410: Was published as a "discovered manuscript" by Bachman. In 2006, King announced that he had discovered another Bachman novel, Blaze , which was published the following year. The original manuscript had been held at the University of Maine for many years and had been covered by numerous King experts. King rewrote the original 1973 manuscript for its publication. King has used other pseudonyms. In 1972,
29410-464: Was published by Markus Ayrer, which is most notable for its woodcut imagery. The alleged serial-killer sprees of Gilles de Rais have been seen as the inspiration for " Bluebeard ". The motif of the vampiress is most notably derived from the real-life noblewoman and murderer, Elizabeth Bathory , and helped usher in the emergence of horror fiction in the 18th century, such as through László Turóczi's 1729 book Tragica Historia . The 18th century saw
29583-598: Was published in the Halloween issue of The New Yorker . The story went on to win the 1996 O. Henry Award . In 1996, King published The Green Mile , the story of a death row inmate, as a serial novel in six parts. It had the distinction of holding the first, fourth, tenth, twelfth, fourteenth, and fifteenth positions on the New York Times paperback-best-seller list at the same time. In 1998, he published of Bag of Bones , his first book with Scribner , about
29756-399: Was the minimum age for graduation at the time). While the first four books of the series are noted for their strong continuity and sense of passing seasons and time, it is lost throughout the series with changes like Nancy's hair color being changed to titian . Her age is changed from 16 to 18 in book 31, The Ringmaster's Secret (1953), with no in-universe explanation. Affluent (her father
29929-631: Was written by women and marketed towards a female audience, a typical scenario of the novels being a resourceful female menaced in a gloomy castle. The Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre that modern readers today call horror literature in the 19th century. Influential works and characters that continue resonating in fiction and film today saw their genesis in the Brothers Grimm 's " Hänsel und Gretel " (1812), Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), John Polidori 's " The Vampyre " (1819), Charles Maturin 's Melmoth
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