Building A Unique S.K. Collection, Part 1

The advice for anyone getting into Stephen King collecting is to start with first editions. That is a great place to start. I'm still hunting my first edition Carrie, Salem's Lot and Gunslinger!

.

As you get a little deeper into collecting, you'll discover it is not hard to develop a collection that is absolutely unique. Why? Because there is so much Stephen King stuff out there! No two collections, even the super duper collections, are not the same. No one has everything Stephen King! In fact, I found myself wondering if Stephen King really has a complete Stephen King collection.

.
If you look, you can find stuff that's special.
.
Some suggestions:
.
Here's some things I think are great for collecting and make your collection a little more unique.
.
1. Some first editions really are worth their weight in gold. Carrie is one of those, and it doesn't seem to be THAT hard to find. I see a lot of ex-library copies out there. However, I am not a fan of the ex-library stuff. There is a Salem's Lot first edition with a famous mistake on the dust jacket regarding Father C. That's worth a blog post of its own, though. The price of first editions starts dropping with The Shining.
.
2. Obviously, anything signed is desirable! His signature seems to increase the value of a book at least 100%. Under The Dome went for $75 special edition -- but a hefty $200 for the signed edition.
.
3. Books signed by others. Anything signed by the author is a little more special. No, I don't know why! I like it, but I have yet to figure out why I think it's so cool. I have a signed Michael Collins book. Also a special edition of Talisman, signed by Peter Straub. The artist editions of the Dark Tower books are also pretty cool, and come signed by the author. I have a Dark Tower 7 signed by Whelan.
.
4. I like to collect old magazines with King's stories in them. Of course, some the really early stuff I don't collect because. . . uh. . . they're in nudie mags! However, there is still a lot out there. King has written so many short stories and articles that have been published all over the place!
.
I like to hunt down the original Dark Tower stories in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I was also excited to find a copy of X-Men Hero's Of Hope which included a contribution by King.
.
5. Any special edition books are great. They're not all that hard to find, but they are far more valuable than mass produced first editions. So, the Talisman/Black House double edition in slip case is obviously a good find (and not that expensive). Some stuff is just impossible. Try finding a Cemetery Dance edition of From a Buick 8! I can't. Or how about the zipper edition of Skeleton Crew? What I'm saying is that when you have a chance to get a special book, snatch it up if the price is right.
.
Lately Cemetery Dance has offered King books in special edition. Blockade Billy came with its own baseball card, which is neat. And they also have a great edition of Full Dark No Stars, which came with a slip case. So far, everything from Cemetery Dance has been very nice. I still wish Cemetery Dance would put out a special two volume edition of The Stand / Swan Song. Hehe.
.
You can also hunt those red leather books. I have about five of them. Honestly, once I had a few, I decided not to continue hunting them. Other than the binding, there's nothing really all that awesome about them. I did spot an entire set -- the whole thing! -- on ebay. I meant to go back and bid, but I forgot. When I showed up 5 minutes too late, the huge lot had gone for $30. OUCH! I wept.
.
6. Promotional stuff. Things like the Dark Tower Wizard And Glass booklet that was released with the Desperation/Regulators. Posters and all kinds of things the publisher sends book stores to hype a book.
.
7. Introductions. I don't collect introductions by King, because there are so many out there! I don't have enough book shelves to do that. His introductions are always a lot of fun! I love his chatty style of talking right to the reader.
.
8. Audio books. Earlier advice was that the audio books would have no value. That's still pretty true! There is little point in collecting the audio books. However, that's not universally true. The Stand and The Mist are both worth the hunt. Ebay often has The Stand on tape going for around $100-200.
.
9. Odds and ends. You know, Magnets, book bags, book covers, documents, letters (letters by King can be very expensive). I have a bunch of court documents from King's lawsuit in the Lawnmower Man case. I got it in a huge grab bag of stuff from Betts bookstore. That thing was loaded with strange stuff! You can find a toy metal Christine, or a Christmas tree ordainment of King's House (that's a little strange, if you ask me!)
.
10. Old publications about King. By that, I mean all those publications that were out before the Internet became our primary means of information. Stephen King had a pretty neat newspaper, called Castle Rock.
.
Fan publications are always cool to find, though they may not have much actual "value" in terms of dollars. I enjoy them! There was a publication called The Red Letter. I don't know much about Red Letter, except that it was small and pretty interesting.
.
There was also a publication called SKIN. It stands for Stephen King Information Network. It was in publicationf rom 1994 to 1995 and produced eighteen newsletters. Read more here: http://talkstephenking.blogspot.com/2009/09/history-of-skin.html
.
11. Books about Stephen King. These are just all out fun. He may not like how many books have been written about him, but some of them are awesome! Try Bev Vincent's "Stephen King Companion" which has tons of reporductions fo original manuscripts. Also, Lilja's Library is a great print version of the website, including his reviews and interviews.
.
I like just about anything by Stephen Spignesi, Michael Collins, Douglas Winter, and George Beahm. Beahm's biography "Stephen King, America's Best Loved Bogeyman" was very good. In fact, I wish he'd update it.
.
Are Stephen King books a good investment?
.
I think you should not buy Stephen King books as an investment. Of course, I don't buy gold, either!
.
Here's the deal: Collect what makes you happy! If you're collecting only to resell, I don't know that the market is big enough for that. I suspect the super collectors end up selling their collections for a loss (but I don't know that!).
.
Because I don't collect to resell, I open everything! That means, when something comes to me shrink wrapped, I open it up! Hey, I bought it to enjoy, not to sit wrapped up like it belongs in a store. I never feel bad cutting that shrink wrap off! Well, with the exception of Desperation/Regulators with the book light attached to it. So maybe the best way to say it is that collecting for profit is not a good route for me.
.
So tell me, what do you like to collect? What pieces where you most excited to find?

Twilight Zone Magazine February 1985

I like to time travel. Maybe it's just time surfing. Captain Kirk is able to time travel by sling shotting his space ship around the sun. I do not have a space ship. Of course, Marty McFly had a car that could leap through time. Geez that movie was fun! Stephen King's next novel is about time travel, but I'm not real clear yet on the means by which movement through time is actually accomplished.

.

Anyway, my means of time travel is old books and magazines. Actually, magazines are the best! A book stays focused on its subject, but a magazine gives you a full flavor of the time.

.

So, via my Stephen King / Peter Straub edition of the Twilight Zone Magazine, I'm headed back to 1985. Come on, this is fun. Besides, I know half of you are at work right now anyway, and this has got to be a better trip than what your boss thinks you're doing.

.

Advertizing Defines The Times

.
Ads really define the times. No one in 1985 was begging you to visit their website, but there are a lot of book clubs to join.

.

There is an ad for L. Ron Hubbard's new book, Battlefield Earth.

.

Also there is an ad for Robert McCammon's Usher's Passing. Headline, "King, Straub, and now Robert McCammon." The text reads, "Wildly enthusiastic reviews greeted Robert R. McCammon's recent bestseller, Mystery walk. Now, in this new novel, Usher's Passing, McCammon's dazzling imagination tracest he descendants of the infamous family of Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher.". . . it sold hardcover for 14:95

.

The back cover sports a full page, color ad for John Carpenters STARMAN. "In 1977 voyager II was launched into space, inviting all life forms int he universe to visit our planet. Get ready. Company's coming." Opens December 14 at a theater near you.

.

By the way, there is a lot of hype in this magazine for the movie 2010. Even a full color article.

.

Stories include:

.

Nostalgia: "OLD DARK HOUSE FOR REND" by Ron Goulart. Did you see the movie of this? Old Dark House is a classic from 1932, directed by none other than James Whale, who also directed Frankenstein.

.

"Changing Of The Guard" by Anne Serling, adapted from the teleplay by Rod Serling. I saw this episode! Oh yeah. . . I've seen them all.
.

"The Time Wife" by Thomas Tolnay. "She looked exactly as his wife had looked twenty years ago. How could any man resist?" Here's a good line from the story, "I couldn't possibly tell my wife that there were two of her in the world." ha! that would be a problem.

.

"Twisted Shadow" by Robert F. Funkley. "The garden was a cozy English world of serenity and peace -- all except a certain shadow that pointed the wrong way." This line here is pretty good: "She is being buried -- heaven protect her! Alive!"

.
"Laughs! Thrills! Romance!!" by Ron Wolfe. "he had missed his chance for all of them -- and now it was too late."

.

"Legacy" by Leigh Essex. "A daughter inherits many things from her mother. . . and love may be the least of them."

.

The Quest For The Talisman

The cover article, "Stephen King, Peter Straub & the Quest for The Talisman" was written by Douglas E. Winter. It closely mirrors his chapter in The Art Of Darkness.

.

Winter is excited that the work was exchanged "electronically" by "telephone modem communication between their respective word processors." Today, we would go. . . "yah!" But I guess passing information electronically was high tech stuff in 1985. But actually, this information was being sent back and forth in 1982!

.

On Thanksgiving of 1982 Kign and Straub met in Boston. Late that night they undertook the "great Thanksgiving putsch" and gave the book its finished structure.

.

King notes that he read everything Mark Twain wrote. Everything! Of course, King says that a lot of what he wrote he did to pay for his house, so it wasn't all good. There are a lot of references to "Reagan's America" and the nuclear threat. It was seen, at the time, as a dark period.

.

Winters explains that the book has some pretty raw sex in it because the authors wanted to be sure they did not write a juvenile, Walt Disney book.

.

SELECTED QUOTES:

Here are some quotes from King and Straub. Quotes make up the meat of the article, which were probably the notes Winter built his chapter from.

.

STRAUB: "It was totally at random. When one of us took it, usually he went on until he reached a point at which he was comfortable dropping it. So we pretty much ignored our assignments and went on until a natural break. By and large, we started off writing it rigidly, and ended up doing it instinctively, which was by far the better of the two ways."

.

KING: "It was a little bit like playing tennis. He would send what he had done and then I would work for three or four weeks and send the stuff back to him. And I really enjoyed the process -- partly because writers are so lazy. It was wonderful; the book would grow without me doing anything. But it was also a little bit like the old days, when I got the Saturday Evening Post with its serial stories. When Peter said he was going to send me something, and I would get excited because I was going to get to read some more of the story."

.

STRAUB: [about editing each others work] "I think we both must have been a little touchy about that. Anyway, we accepted whatever the other guy did until the book was done. Then, in the final editing, we each took a free hand with the other's stuff. and there were times when I wished we could have done the whole book like that, becasue it was a wonderful and profound experience, and something very few writers ever get the chance to have. It's like having an X ray of someones mind when you review his material that way."

.

KING: "The problems with The Talisman were always problems of length. The book had been conceived as a 'get it and bring it back' story, as opposed to The Lord of the Rings, which is a 'take it and get rid of it' story. But we began to realize that we had only mapped out half of the book -- that is to say, we had mapped about to the point where Jack gets it, and we had left bringing it back to another planning session. Except that by November of 1982, we already had something like six hundred pages of copy. So, we're sitting and looking at each other saying, 'We've got to do something.' We kicked around a lot of ideas, because there were lots of incidents we had planned for the way out that we hadn't got to yet, and we started realizing that this was going to be long."

.

STRAUB: "It would have been a four-thousand page novel, and Steve and I would both be dead, if we were still trying to write that thing."

.

KING: "It's a very mythic book. to me, the most wonderful thing about it is how eighteenth and nineteenth century the book is in terms of storytelling, and also in terms of the effort to create large archetypes.

.

We were interested in the concept of the hero in literature. we talked about the hero in terms of the quest, the mythicization of the hero, and the return of the hero to a lesser being when the quest is completed. Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel that doesn't have a specific object for its quest, so we focused instead on things like the story of Jesus, the story of King Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We talked about those things, and when we wrote the book, it filtered down like sediment."

.

STRAUB: "Twain was on our minds at the start, but the finished book suggests that our efforts were more conscious than they really were. I do know that we had Tom Sawyer in mind when we named Jack; but we really didn't have Twain on our minds during the whole term of the book."

.

KING: "It's about children who have power."

The Art of Darkness

I've been reading Stephen King: The Art Of Darkness, by Douglas E. Winter. Now, I have to admit up front, I didn't read this cover to cover. I bounced around according to the book I was interested in. So, while I didn't read it whole, I think I read the whole thing.
.
This is an outstanding book.
.
1. Winter has a strong grasp of classic fiction. He doesn't try to sell King as little more than a pop-culture wonder boy, but compares him to classics. That's a joy. He discusses The Heart Of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad in his chapter on The Stand. By the way, I hated The Heart Of Darkness. So, better to let Mr. Winter tell me the connections than have to dig them out myself!
.
In trying to catagorize The Stand, he compares it to such works as that of J.R.R. Tolkien, E.R. Eddison and even Milton's Paradise Lost.
.
He notes, "Like Tolkien's popular The Lord Of The Rings, The Stand takes the form of a noble quest and employs a host of characters, some heroic, some darker and indeed monstrous." (55)
.
2. Winter had a working knowledge of King's unpublished works. In his chapter on The Mist, Winter gives mention to "I was a teenage grave robber" and "The Aftermath." He also discusses "Sword in the Darkness."
.
3. Winter is rightly able to compare King to popular culture, including the cult film Night of the Living Dead. I mention this, because it does take some skill to draw from both classic literature and modern films. But when discussing King, both are important.
.
4. The book is locked in time. Published in 1984, a fun quality about The Art of Darkness is that it gives us a look at King's early works without some of the clutter that must come with later reviews. It is not necessary to compare Cujo to Geralds Game. Or The Stand to Under The Dome. I like those things -- but it's refreshing to see how King was viewed early on.
.
Winter gives us glimpses at unpublished works that we now have. For instance, when this was written, Blaze and The Cannibals were both unpublished works. I recall King himself noting that he recently read The Art Of Darkness and what it said about the Cannibals. (see page 157-158 of The Art Of Darkness for his words on The Cannibals)
.
It's interesting to read his chapter "Always More Tales" to see what was yet to come -- stuff we now have. He lists: Skeleton Crew, IT, The Eyes of the Dragon, The Tommyknockers.
.
Winter writes, Both The Eyes of the Dragon and The Tommyknockers have seen complete first drafts; at least two other novels are underway, and King continues to contemplate his proposed sequal to 'Salem's Lot. And then there are the myriad afternoon projects -- what King likes to call his toys -- that he plays with after each morning of serious writing work:
.
"I almost never think of an audience. I've got things so ridiculous that I can't be thinking of an audience. They amuse me and I don't have any idea whether they would amuse anyone else or not."
.
A recent example is The Cannibals which King wrote in long hand during the filming of Creepshow, inspired by his living quarters in Monroeville Pennsylvania: "I've got about 450 pages done and it is all about these people who are trapped in an apartment building. Worst thing I could think of. And I thought, wouldn't it be funny if they all ended up eating each other? It's very very bizarre because it's all on one note. And who knows whether it will be published or not?"
.
To Stephen King it really doesn't matter if the Cannibals sees print. It is impossible to read his fiction without recognizing, in its energy, honesty, and utter lack of inhibition, that it is the product of an inner necessity."
.
I think Winter's book gives us a glimpse of a Stephen King my generation is likely to forget. The younger Stephen King who was still riding his way to the top of his craft.
.
5. The Art Of Darkness serves as an early biography. Of course, at that point, King's drug use was unknown and the accident was still 16 years in the future. An early chapter is simply titled Notes Toward A Biography. The book also has a nice set of pictures in the center, typical of the period it was printed in.
.
6. Finally, The Art of Darkness is a well rounded look at King. It does not focus only on his family, upbrining, books or his movies, but covers it all in a comfortable space. The book is a precursor to the later "companion" style books -- all of which I like.
.
Written with real energy, Winter was an early voice on the scene calling for Stephen King to be taken more serious. The book has been updated at least once, but alas, there is no way for it to keep up with the volume of King's output. It is dated -- which I like.
.
Books By Douglas E. Winter:
The Art of Darkness (1984)
Faces of Fear (1985)
Splatter: A Cautionary Tale (limited edition, 1987)
Prime Evil (1988)
Darkness Absolute (limited edition, 1991)
Black Sun (limited edition, 1994)
Revelations (1997)
Run (2000)
Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic (2002)
Introduction to Legal Writing (2003)
A Little Brass Book of Full Metal Fiction (limited edition, 2006)
.
LINKS:
For a really wonderful article on The Art Of Darkness as a "journey" follow this link:
http://www.davidlday.com/2009/09/24/stephen-king-the-art-of-darkness-night-journey/
.
Winter's myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/douglasewinter
.
Winter in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_E._Winter
.
Interview with Winter on his book Run http://www.crimetime.co.uk/interviews/douglaswinter.html

Do You ONLY Read Stephen King?

. redrum

Stephen King fans are fiercely loyal. However, some readers choose to only read Stephen King. I think this is somewhat unique to King fans. I don't know many people who only read Tom Clancy. But then, Clancy isn't as prolific as King.

.reDrum

George Beahm mentioned this devotion (to read King only) to author Clive Barker. Beahm pointed out, "When we interviewed Douglas E. Winer at his hoe in upstate Virginia, he commented that at a public gathering with you, you two were discussing your perceptions of the many peole who read tpehn King and your work but who apparently read little else. They have no frame of reference outside your and Kings body of work. That's a very self-limiting eperience." (Stephen King Companion, George Beahm, p.163)

. redrum

So who else is worth reading?

. redrum

Historical drama:

. redrum

I really like Ken Follette's companion books: Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. This is a kind of fiction King isn't going to give his readers. King likes the here and now -- while Ken has the ability to transport you easily to another time and place. One wonderful thing Follette does concerns dialogue. Unlike other novels set in middle ages, he does not use old English. The langauge is easy and the action constant. There are no wasted scenes in his books.

. redrum

Here in America there has never been anyone who really challnged John Steinbeck. In particular The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck gives a gritty front row seat to a nasty part of American history.

. redrum

Romance:

.redrum

I don't read romance. My wife is enjoying a book titled, "The Time Travelers Wife." I will refrain from comment. (Oh, I also don't read much Scifi.)

.redrum

Classics:

.redRum

You really can't beat Charles Dickens. In that catagory, King himself recommends Little Dorrit, saying: "His most sentimental, absorbing, delightful novel...and yes, you will like it. Dorrit is as easy to read as any current best-seller, and more rewarding than most. Also, it explains the whole Bernard Madoff mess. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'." http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20278661_5,00.html

.redrum

My favorite Charles Dickens book is Great Expectations. Strong characters and carefully plotted, this novel is Dickens at his best.

.redrum

Legal / Political:

.redrum

Classic John Grisham (Pelican Brief, The Client, The Firm)

.redrum

On the political front, George Orwell's twin books: 1984 and Animal Farm were great.

.redrum

Tom Clancy, so long as I can say: I liked his old stuff. Red October, Red Storm Rising. But when it turned into a Jack Ryan soap opera at a billion pages each, I ducked out.

.redrum

Horror:

.redrum

Might as well make a list for this one. I like the genre.

.redrum

1. Edgar Allen Poe is wonderful. It doesn't matter which story you read, they're all good.

.redrum

2. Richard Lymon is pretty demented. I thnk he's great! One of those guys who just wrote the stuff he wanted to write and didn't care what people said. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/richard-laymon/

.redrum

3. There's Drood, by Dan Simmons. King said this about Drood: "Simmons is always good, but Drood is a masterwork of narrative suspense. It's a story of Egyptian cults, brain-burrowing beetles, life-sucking vampires, and an underground city beneath London...or is it? Maybe it's all in the drug-addled mind of Dickens contemporary Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone), whose poison jealousy of the Inimitable becomes more apparent as the story nibbles its way into the reader's head." http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20278661_6,00.html

.redrum

4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stephen King explains, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written at white heat by Robert Louis Stevenson in three days. It so horrified his wife that Stevenson burned the manuscript in his fire place. . . and then wrote it again from scratch in another three days." (Danse Macabre, Chapter 3, p.60)

.redrum

5. The Beast Within, Edward Levy is what King's mother would have called "trash." Good trash? No. But it's a delightful read. I read it the first time thinking, "I can't believe they print stuff this bad." Then I bought it hardcover when I lost the paperback. There is something about it that is good trash.

.redrum

Mystery:

.redrum

You really can't beat Aurther Conan Doyal's Sherlock Holmes stories. Why? Because they are sharp, well written and short. Together, they build a common story, but each one stands on its own.

.redrum

Also under mystery, my wife rads Monk.

.redrum

Christian Fiction:

.redrum

This is a genre I avoid at all cost. All the world needs is another Christian Amish Romance book. Gag. I am waiting for the Stephen King version of this genre. Ha! That would be wonderful!

.redrum

My job requires I spend lots, lots of time reading commentaries and other scholarly works on Scripture. Maybe these books are too preachy. Maybe they're just too sappy. Anyway, the Book has enough of everything.

.redrum

Probably the best Christian author is Frank Peretti. He and Ted Decker live on the edge of all out horror. But in general, I stick witht he real thing in this catagory.

.redrum

Commedy:

.redrum

How about Forrest Gump. I'm serious, it was a good book! And a lot of stuff that didn't make it to the screen.

.redrum

Another wonderful commedy / drama is Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Anne Burns.

.redrum

Books / Authors I want to read, but just haven't:

.ReDRuM

Les Miserables.

.redrum

H.P. Lovecraft.

.redrum

Ernest Hemingway

.redrum

Harlan Ellison -- now who couldn't be interested in an author who had a dust jacket that included the statement that he was "possibly the most contentious person on Earth"

redrum

King Speaks On The Cannibals

Stephen King & Robert Louis Stevenson

.

In Danse Macabre, Stephen King notes that Robert Lous Stevenson wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at a break neck pace -- completing the novel in just three days. However, the book so upset his wife that he burned it in his fireplace! Then, regretting his repentance he wrote it again, from scratch in another three days. (See Dance Macabre, p.60)

.

If that first draft of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde existed -- would we want to read it? You bet! We would probably find that the rewrite came out much stronger, but just the same, it would be interesting.

.

The Art Of Darkness

.

It seemed that the Cannibals was lost in Stephen King's fireplace. Only mentioned briefly by Douglas E. Winter in The Art o Darkness -- but for the most part, it was gone. Until King found it (or went looking for it) in his office. He has released the first 60 pages. A rather humble act for an accomplished author! To show his work, warts and all, is pretty bold.

.

Douglas Winter's book was so good that almost every other references just checked back to Winter. The Art of Darkness was a true gift to fans at the time and still. It has proved a lasting source of information. Something King himself admits having referenced recently! Anyway, Stephen King has recently given some more history on the connection between Under the Dome and The Cannibals.

.

King Says. . .

.

King says that he lost the first draft, but the other was written in Pittsburg. Interesting to me that this was during the filming of Creepshow, since you would think he would stop writing to make a movie. But then, if King stopped for each movie -- he would never write again!

.

"I spent two months in a depressing suburban apartment complex," King says, "that became (with the usual fictional tweaks) the setting for the story. It was called The Cannibals, and this time I got a lot further—almost five hundred pages—before hitting a wall. I assumed the manuscript was lost. Long story short, it turned up—battered, and with some pages missing, but mostly complete—in the summer of 2009."

.

John MacDonald Had An Interesting Take
.

At the beginning of Night Shift, John D. MacDonald said that what makes King a great writer is that King has written a "stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassified things, most of them too wrtched to ever publish." (Night Shift, introduction).

.

King offers the work simply for amusement, suggesting it be an "appetier" to Under The Dome. For those who enjoy seeing a writers work before rewrites and editors, this should be a treat. MacDonald would remind us that it is this earlier work that made King's soon to be published work strong.

.

A Typewriter?!

.
"I’m amused by the antique quality of the typescript," King admits. "this may have been the last thing I did on my old IBM Selectric before moving on to a computer system." Seems like I remember him saying years ago that he didn't like computers because he felt like his words were under glass. Of course, the computer would go bye bye when he wrote Dreamcatcher by hand.

Under The Dome and The Cannibals

I'm reposting this because it's interesting to me -- and adding some new info.

.

Stephen King has stated this is upcoming novel Under The Dome is really his third attempt at this story. The previous titles were The Cannibals and Under The Dome. In the Art of Darkness, King states, "I worked on a book called The Cannibals–I had started it five years before, but it was called Under the Dome then. It didn't get finished either time."

.

So what can be known about this unfinished novel? According to Stephen Spingensi's The Lost Work Of Stephen King, The Cannibals is about 100,000 words hand written novel. Spingensi reports that it was written while King was on the set of Creepshow. Remember King in Creepshow? The picture above is King in character on the set of Creepshow. Somehow the idea that he was thinking about Cannibals at the time seems totally believable!

.

What is interesting about The Cannibals is that it was written in 1983. King was already a successful author. This is not just stuff from his highschool days that he dumped, it was the serious work of a published author.

.

King told douglas Winter in the Art of Darkness, "I've got about four hundred and fifty pages done and it is all about these people who are trapped in an apartment building. worst thing I could think of. And i thought, wouldn't it be funny if they ended up eating each other? It's very, very bizarre because it's all on one note. And who knows whether it will be published or not."

.

Without having read The Cannibals or Under The Dome, I can only mention on the surface a major difference appears to be that The Cannibals limited itself to an apartment building, while Under The Dome is set on the landscape of an entire town (Chester's Mill).

.

September 13, 2009 Update: Scribner has stated that an except of The Cannibals will be released on September 15th. It will be posted on stephenking.com. Obviously I'm interested in the original story -- but of geater interest is always the finished work that has the authors approval.