Lot Essay
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Details
KING, STEPHEN. Forty-two typed letters signed, one typed letter, and one carbon copy of a typed letter signed, all to William G. Thompson, special projects editor at Doubleday and Company, and three typed letters signed and one brief autograph letter signed to others of the same firm, virtually all written from various places in Maine, early 1971-24 May 1978. Together 48 letters, 73 pages, 4to, the typed letters single-spaced, signed "Stephen King," "Steve King," "Steve" (mostly), and "Steve K." in various colored inks, seven with holograph (mostly initialed) postcripts, some on his printed letterhead; with the material below in acetate holders in 2 loose-leaf albums.
[with] (1) Autograph manuscript by King of the dust jacket copy for The Stand (published 1978), 1 1/2 pages, 4to, in ink, with revisions, and typescript (by Doubleday?) of same, 2 pages, 4to. Any holograph material of King's is rare; (2) Four typescripts by King of biographical notes, publicity releases, and promotional material for Carrie, one typescript by him of dust jacket copy for 'Salem's Lot, and one typescript by him of dust jacket copy for The Shining, 1973-1977, together 7 pages, 4to, single and double-spaced, two typescripts with a few holograph revisions, one initialed by King, with a related typescript prepared by Doubleday; (3) Two typescripts of two articles by King, 5 pages, 4to, single and double-spaced, one typescript a carbon copy, with a carbon copy of a King letter; (4) Typescript by King of his story "I Know What You Need," 28 pages, 4to, double-spaced, a clean carbon copy, King's name and address typed at front; (5) Seven letters and carbon copies of letters to King from the people at Doubleday and others; and (6) Two photographs of King and about 16 pieces of publishing ephemera: publicity and marketing items, Literary Guild issues, clippings, a sample dust jacket for Night Shift, etc.
STEPHEN KING TO HIS PUBLISHER: FROM "CARRIE" TO "THE STAND"
An exceptional archive -- particularly given the paucity of King letters and manuscript items on the market -- covering the development of his literary career from his earliest novels throught The Stand (1978). Among the King works discussed at length -- with some letters entirely concerning the individual books -- are: Getting It On (retitled Rage), The Long Walk, The Running Man -- all published 1977-1982 under the Richard Backman pseudonym, Carrie, 'Salem's Lot (originally titled Second Coming), The Shining, Night Shift, and The Stand, among others. King also writes of unpublished works (Blaze, Sword in the Darkness), discusses in detail contract terms and financial arrangements, gives news of his family life, considers his career as an author, and comments on books by other authors (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula of special interest). Because of the length and depth of the correspondence only the following sample quotations can be given.
[undated, but early 1971 -- King's first letter to Doubleday]: "Gentlemen: I have completed a short -- to middle-length novel called Getting It On, which I think might be of interest to you. It's a combination of suspense and 'straight' novel forms (a possible --flattering -- analogue would be the works of James B. Cain)..." At bottom of letter William Thompson has penned: "Dear Mr. K, Please send your manuscript..." [October 1972]: "...The book is called Carrie [his first published novel, issued in 1974, which launched his phenomenal career]...[it] is quite different from anything I've ever written before...and both main characters are female. I'm not going into a plot outline -- it would sound crazy if I put it on paper in summary -- but I will say it was a much harder trick than I thought it would be. But if Stephen Crane could write The Red Badge of Courage without ever going to war, I guess I can write a novel that revolves around shower-room mensturation incident...The book is once again a high-school novel..." 29 December 1972 (one of two letters entirely concerned with re-writing ideas for Carrie): "...2. Carrie is not going to pull down the beams after being doused with blood (this is where everybody starts to laugh.) She is going to close all the doors, overturn the lighted candles on the prom tables and start a great many small fires. Then she is going to cause the rock band's equipment to implode, starting a major fire. 3. Carrie exits the gym by a door rather than blowing a hole in the wall...5. Instead of being taken over by a hallucinegen-like power beyond her control, Carrie remains in control of her own mind, going through a murderous hate-guilt-hate cycle..."
2 June 1973: "...Now, concerning Second Coming [published 1975 as 'Salem's Lot]. First, the prologue section, called Extracts, is not there yet. It's going to be about two pages of source-quotes, material (scholarly and otherwise) on vampires counterpointed with stuff from popular songs, quotes from movies, etc. I want to set the reader's face for a horror story that's very much set in the American mainstream (Mainestream?). I got the idea for this book last year, when I was teaching Dracula to my fantasy and science fiction class...so far as I knew, only one vampire novel had been published in America in the last thirty years or so. That is a book by Richard Matheson called I Am Legend...I'd also notice that book-publishers seemed to be going through a vampire wave, just as they are now going through a Hitler wave (the two subjects are no so distant at that)...So I wrote the book. I thought, setting out to do it, that I could write a better book than Dracula without too much trouble. As a matter of fact, writing it was a great deal of trouble, and it still isn't as good as Dracula, which looks like more and more of an achievement..." Four other King letters are almost entirely about the writing of 'Salem's Lot.
29 April 1975: "...it's a first draft...with me the second draft is mostly an exercise in polishing and honing...The book, by the way, is called The Shine [published 1977 as The Shining]. I remember you saying that on the face of it the book sounded like Burnt Offerings, but don't forget that the haunted house story is a genre sort of thing, and one story of the type is apt to resemble another in the same way that one western resembles another...I think The Shine resembles Burnt Offerings in the same way that The Oxbow Incident resembles Shootout at Cripple Creek. We both ought to remember that as well as Marasco's (sic) novel [Burnt Offerings] in the genre, we have the works of Seabury Quinn, Matheson's Hell House, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting, William Sloane's Edge of Bright Water, not to mention Bram Stoker's 'The Judge's House' and Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' All I'm trying to say here, maybe a little too defensively...is that the genre shouldn't be abandoned because this guy who wanted to cash in on Rosemary's Baby a few years ago [with Burnt Offerings] threw up on it..." 6 October 1975: "...And speaking of The Shine, I really do have to go to work on it...What I'd like to do [with you] is go through it scene by scene, flag the ones that have to be changed, and discuss the changes themselves. I want to add a prologue called 'Before the Play' that would consist of maybe twenty to twenty-five pages, about five scenes, one of Jack's father beating him up, four more short ones in the Overlook Hotel -- quick cuts which will show us the pattern of bad luck and unhappiness. Some of the incidents will be ones that Jack reads about later in the basement, when the hotel starts to become a compulsion with him...The wife's name will be changed to Wendy Torrance...Jack and Jenny sounds too much like a vaudeville team. Most of the scenes that have to be changed can be changed by omitting stuff that's already there rather than by adding, I think, which makes my job much, much easier. And I've come completely around to your thinking on letting the woman live...I've been psychologically ready to get back to that book [The Shining] for some time..."
13 March 1976: "...my thoughts turn more and more to The Stand, which you are still holding...and withholding an opinion on [The Stand was published, greatly cut at Thompson's insistence, in 1978; the complete version was published much later]. Your idea that things could be simplified by one or more characters 'taking the (gas) pipe' has recurred to me quite often as a solution to at least 1/4 of the problems in that book, and I tend to think more and more that it should be Book 4 in the current contract, if it can be finished and rewritten with panache. Would it be possible to publish a book of this sort by way of [J.R.R.] Tolkien [The Lord of the Rings], in Volumes 1 and 2 a year apart? Or together? I know that as a single book it would run very, very long, even with cuts...The conclusion of the book from the point you are at when you finish -- if you ever do, pant-pant, gasp-gasp -- is pretty simple. The Boulder society is stablilized, the forces of the Dark Man attack and are defeated. The Dark Man seizes Frannie Goldsmith's son and hold it ransom on a high place. Let me go and the child lives, attack me and the child dies. He is rushed, the child is killed, and the Dark Man is killed, or escapes -- it doesn't matter which, as this guy is simply a symbol for all the willful evil in mankind at large. We are left with this society dead-square in the middle of America, rebuilding things for better of worse...worse, in my own opinion. Mankind was built with a permanent fuckup circuit...The old woman dies in the final scene, calling to a God whom won't answer, and as Dylan says, 'Nothing is revealed.' It's funny how any long novel always seems to come to that conclusion..." Two other letters deal in great detail with the book.
8 May 1976: "...My own feeling is that there is really no substantive differences between us in what we think is best for me as a writer -- I'm talking plain old sales here, and not what shape my writing may take in the future. Most baldly stated, I'd like to be a 'supermarket name' like Arthur Hailley (sic), James Michener, or Leon Uris -- a name that's recognizable by a large percentage of the American reading public. There's really no shame in that. Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck were all supermarket names. I'm not trying to classify myself with them, but what I am saying is that the last few years have not been entirely pleasant for me, because I simply don't feel I've sold enough books to justify the mind-croggling amounts of money paid to my account. I don't just want the best seller so I can make some more bucks, but also so I can say, There, we all came out square. You guys got what you paid for..."
(a quantity)
[with] (1) Autograph manuscript by King of the dust jacket copy for The Stand (published 1978), 1 1/2 pages, 4to, in ink, with revisions, and typescript (by Doubleday?) of same, 2 pages, 4to. Any holograph material of King's is rare; (2) Four typescripts by King of biographical notes, publicity releases, and promotional material for Carrie, one typescript by him of dust jacket copy for 'Salem's Lot, and one typescript by him of dust jacket copy for The Shining, 1973-1977, together 7 pages, 4to, single and double-spaced, two typescripts with a few holograph revisions, one initialed by King, with a related typescript prepared by Doubleday; (3) Two typescripts of two articles by King, 5 pages, 4to, single and double-spaced, one typescript a carbon copy, with a carbon copy of a King letter; (4) Typescript by King of his story "I Know What You Need," 28 pages, 4to, double-spaced, a clean carbon copy, King's name and address typed at front; (5) Seven letters and carbon copies of letters to King from the people at Doubleday and others; and (6) Two photographs of King and about 16 pieces of publishing ephemera: publicity and marketing items, Literary Guild issues, clippings, a sample dust jacket for Night Shift, etc.
STEPHEN KING TO HIS PUBLISHER: FROM "CARRIE" TO "THE STAND"
An exceptional archive -- particularly given the paucity of King letters and manuscript items on the market -- covering the development of his literary career from his earliest novels throught The Stand (1978). Among the King works discussed at length -- with some letters entirely concerning the individual books -- are: Getting It On (retitled Rage), The Long Walk, The Running Man -- all published 1977-1982 under the Richard Backman pseudonym, Carrie, 'Salem's Lot (originally titled Second Coming), The Shining, Night Shift, and The Stand, among others. King also writes of unpublished works (Blaze, Sword in the Darkness), discusses in detail contract terms and financial arrangements, gives news of his family life, considers his career as an author, and comments on books by other authors (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula of special interest). Because of the length and depth of the correspondence only the following sample quotations can be given.
[undated, but early 1971 -- King's first letter to Doubleday]: "Gentlemen: I have completed a short -- to middle-length novel called Getting It On, which I think might be of interest to you. It's a combination of suspense and 'straight' novel forms (a possible --flattering -- analogue would be the works of James B. Cain)..." At bottom of letter William Thompson has penned: "Dear Mr. K, Please send your manuscript..." [October 1972]: "...The book is called Carrie [his first published novel, issued in 1974, which launched his phenomenal career]...[it] is quite different from anything I've ever written before...and both main characters are female. I'm not going into a plot outline -- it would sound crazy if I put it on paper in summary -- but I will say it was a much harder trick than I thought it would be. But if Stephen Crane could write The Red Badge of Courage without ever going to war, I guess I can write a novel that revolves around shower-room mensturation incident...The book is once again a high-school novel..." 29 December 1972 (one of two letters entirely concerned with re-writing ideas for Carrie): "...2. Carrie is not going to pull down the beams after being doused with blood (this is where everybody starts to laugh.) She is going to close all the doors, overturn the lighted candles on the prom tables and start a great many small fires. Then she is going to cause the rock band's equipment to implode, starting a major fire. 3. Carrie exits the gym by a door rather than blowing a hole in the wall...5. Instead of being taken over by a hallucinegen-like power beyond her control, Carrie remains in control of her own mind, going through a murderous hate-guilt-hate cycle..."
2 June 1973: "...Now, concerning Second Coming [published 1975 as 'Salem's Lot]. First, the prologue section, called Extracts, is not there yet. It's going to be about two pages of source-quotes, material (scholarly and otherwise) on vampires counterpointed with stuff from popular songs, quotes from movies, etc. I want to set the reader's face for a horror story that's very much set in the American mainstream (Mainestream?). I got the idea for this book last year, when I was teaching Dracula to my fantasy and science fiction class...so far as I knew, only one vampire novel had been published in America in the last thirty years or so. That is a book by Richard Matheson called I Am Legend...I'd also notice that book-publishers seemed to be going through a vampire wave, just as they are now going through a Hitler wave (the two subjects are no so distant at that)...So I wrote the book. I thought, setting out to do it, that I could write a better book than Dracula without too much trouble. As a matter of fact, writing it was a great deal of trouble, and it still isn't as good as Dracula, which looks like more and more of an achievement..." Four other King letters are almost entirely about the writing of 'Salem's Lot.
29 April 1975: "...it's a first draft...with me the second draft is mostly an exercise in polishing and honing...The book, by the way, is called The Shine [published 1977 as The Shining]. I remember you saying that on the face of it the book sounded like Burnt Offerings, but don't forget that the haunted house story is a genre sort of thing, and one story of the type is apt to resemble another in the same way that one western resembles another...I think The Shine resembles Burnt Offerings in the same way that The Oxbow Incident resembles Shootout at Cripple Creek. We both ought to remember that as well as Marasco's (sic) novel [Burnt Offerings] in the genre, we have the works of Seabury Quinn, Matheson's Hell House, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting, William Sloane's Edge of Bright Water, not to mention Bram Stoker's 'The Judge's House' and Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' All I'm trying to say here, maybe a little too defensively...is that the genre shouldn't be abandoned because this guy who wanted to cash in on Rosemary's Baby a few years ago [with Burnt Offerings] threw up on it..." 6 October 1975: "...And speaking of The Shine, I really do have to go to work on it...What I'd like to do [with you] is go through it scene by scene, flag the ones that have to be changed, and discuss the changes themselves. I want to add a prologue called 'Before the Play' that would consist of maybe twenty to twenty-five pages, about five scenes, one of Jack's father beating him up, four more short ones in the Overlook Hotel -- quick cuts which will show us the pattern of bad luck and unhappiness. Some of the incidents will be ones that Jack reads about later in the basement, when the hotel starts to become a compulsion with him...The wife's name will be changed to Wendy Torrance...Jack and Jenny sounds too much like a vaudeville team. Most of the scenes that have to be changed can be changed by omitting stuff that's already there rather than by adding, I think, which makes my job much, much easier. And I've come completely around to your thinking on letting the woman live...I've been psychologically ready to get back to that book [The Shining] for some time..."
13 March 1976: "...my thoughts turn more and more to The Stand, which you are still holding...and withholding an opinion on [The Stand was published, greatly cut at Thompson's insistence, in 1978; the complete version was published much later]. Your idea that things could be simplified by one or more characters 'taking the (gas) pipe' has recurred to me quite often as a solution to at least 1/4 of the problems in that book, and I tend to think more and more that it should be Book 4 in the current contract, if it can be finished and rewritten with panache. Would it be possible to publish a book of this sort by way of [J.R.R.] Tolkien [The Lord of the Rings], in Volumes 1 and 2 a year apart? Or together? I know that as a single book it would run very, very long, even with cuts...The conclusion of the book from the point you are at when you finish -- if you ever do, pant-pant, gasp-gasp -- is pretty simple. The Boulder society is stablilized, the forces of the Dark Man attack and are defeated. The Dark Man seizes Frannie Goldsmith's son and hold it ransom on a high place. Let me go and the child lives, attack me and the child dies. He is rushed, the child is killed, and the Dark Man is killed, or escapes -- it doesn't matter which, as this guy is simply a symbol for all the willful evil in mankind at large. We are left with this society dead-square in the middle of America, rebuilding things for better of worse...worse, in my own opinion. Mankind was built with a permanent fuckup circuit...The old woman dies in the final scene, calling to a God whom won't answer, and as Dylan says, 'Nothing is revealed.' It's funny how any long novel always seems to come to that conclusion..." Two other letters deal in great detail with the book.
8 May 1976: "...My own feeling is that there is really no substantive differences between us in what we think is best for me as a writer -- I'm talking plain old sales here, and not what shape my writing may take in the future. Most baldly stated, I'd like to be a 'supermarket name' like Arthur Hailley (sic), James Michener, or Leon Uris -- a name that's recognizable by a large percentage of the American reading public. There's really no shame in that. Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck were all supermarket names. I'm not trying to classify myself with them, but what I am saying is that the last few years have not been entirely pleasant for me, because I simply don't feel I've sold enough books to justify the mind-croggling amounts of money paid to my account. I don't just want the best seller so I can make some more bucks, but also so I can say, There, we all came out square. You guys got what you paid for..."
(a quantity)