Stephen King - biography, information, personal life. Interesting facts from the life of Stephen King (14 photos) Who is Stephen King biography

Stephen Edwin King(English: Stephen Edwin King) is an American writer who works in a variety of genres, including horror, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and drama. Not only due to his consonance with his surname, but primarily due to his outstanding literary achievements in the genre, he received the nickname “King of Horror”.

Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine, into the family of merchant marine captain Donald Edward King and trained pianist Nellie Ruth Pillsbury (by this time the family already had an eldest, adopted child, David Victor). The writer's father had Polish roots and decided to change his own surname Spenski to the sonorous English "King". In 1949, when Stephen was two years old, Donald King left the house one day to buy cigarettes and did not return. His fate remained unclear for a long time, and only in the late 1990s did the children learn that their father had started another family (his second Brazilian wife gave birth to four children) and lived nearby until his death in 1980.

After her husband left, Stephen’s mother had to take on any job, mostly doing unskilled, low-paid work, and the family had to frequently change their place of residence. In 1949-1958 they lived in Chicago, Fort Wayne (Indiana), Malden (Massachusetts), West De Pere (Wisconsin), Stratford (Connecticut), until they finally settled in West Durham, a town 30 miles from Scarborough, Maine. King recalled: “Ever since I was a child, I felt that life was unfair. My mother raised me alone, my father abandoned us, and she had to work a lot and hard. We were poor, living paycheck to paycheck, and didn't know anything about equal opportunity society or any of that bullshit.<…>Something of this feeling of injustice still remains and is reflected today in my books.”

Due to frequent moves and poor health, Stephen was seriously ill for a long time, which is why he had to remain in first grade for the second year. To escape from the pain, the boy, encouraged by his mother, began writing short stories at the age of 12. The first of them was called "Mr. Sly Rabbit" and was about a white rabbit and his three animal friends driving around the city to find children in trouble and help them out. His mother liked what he read, and Steve wrote four more stories about the rabbit, receiving 25 cents each, which became his first writer's fee. At the same time, the boy is passionate about reading books, comics (such as “Tales from the Crypt”, “Tomb of Horrors”, “Crypt of Horror”, “Madness”, “Spider-Man”, “Superman”, “Hulk”), often watches movies (black and white as part of the TV show “Million Dollar Movie” and horror films in cinemas - the first was “Creature from the Black Lagoon”). Stephen remembers being truly frightened by the forest fire scene from the cartoon Bambi - the boy had nightmares for weeks afterwards - and listening to a radio play based on the works of Ray Bradbury, Mars is Heaven. King said: “I liked the feeling of fear, I liked the feeling of completely losing control over my feelings.”

In January 1959, David and Stephen King decided to publish their own newspaper. The brothers created a newsletter called "Dave's Paper," printing each issue on an old mimeograph machine and distributing it to neighbors for 5 cents a copy. Dave was responsible for local news, and Stephen wrote reviews of his favorite TV shows and movies, as well as short stories. Around the same time, the boy became acquainted with the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who became one of his favorite authors. In his interviews, King expressed his firm belief that the age of 13-15 is ideal for reading Lovecraft, and told how he himself accidentally found a collection of his stories, “Lurking in the Shadows,” in a paperback yellow cover, rummaging through a pile of his father’s old books in the attic, and how, while reading all these ominous stories, I experienced a feeling of “coming home.”

As a teenager, King changed several schools, often getting into conflict situations either because of his passion for the horror genre - inappropriate for a teenager, according to the director, or because of writing stories about the fictional adventures of teachers using black humor. But my school years were also memorable for other things - for example, the release, together with friend Chris Chesley, of a homemade collection of short stories, People, Places and Things, in 1960; a short stint as editor of the school newspaper; finally, the first real publication: in 1965, in the magazine Comics Review under the title “In a Half World of Terror,” Stephen’s story, based also on personal experience, “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber,” was published Teenage Grave Robber). As a reward, the aspiring writer received a couple of author's copies of the issue.

In 1966, King graduated from high school and entered the University of Maine. Among King's teachers was the famous literary critic Carroll Terrell, who subsequently published a book about his student, Stephen King: man and artist (1990). In 1970, King graduated from the university with a bachelor's degree and was declared unfit for military service. In the fall of 1971, King began working as an English teacher at a school in Hampden, Maine. He writes the novel Carrie, which he considers unsuccessful and even throws out the draft, but at the insistence of his wife, he completes it, and in 1974 Doubleday publishes Carrie, then sells the copyright to the novel to NAL. The fee he receives allows King to leave his job at school and pursue creativity seriously: “There’s nothing else I’d rather do... I really can’t imagine doing anything else, and I can’t imagine not doing anything else.” what I do,” the writer later said. In 1977, the novel "The Shining" was published, and also - under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and under the title "Rage" - King's early novel "Getting It On" was published. However, after real school shootings began to occur in Kansas, and an edition of “Rage” was found in the possession of a juvenile delinquent who killed three of his classmates, the author himself decided to withdraw the book from sale.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stephen King published a number of other works under the pseudonym Richard Bachman (“The Long Walk,” “Road Work,” “The Running Man,” “The Thin Man”). The writer is trying in this way to check whether he can repeat his success again, fearing that it is only an accident, a coincidence. According to another version, the use of a pseudonym was dictated by the publishing standards of the time, which allowed the publication of only one book per year. King chooses a surname for his “literary double” in honor of his favorite band “Bachman-Turner Overdrive” and invents a biography. However, the hoax was exposed by a Washington bookstore clerk who noticed similarities between King's old works and Bachman's new works, and who also discovered King's name on one of Bachman's novels in the Library of Congress - and soon Bachman was declared "deceased", but his books were still being published by him as well. fictional widow, Claudia Innes Bachman. In 1985, Stephen King would reveal the real authorship of Bachman’s books, and subsequently, in the novel “The Dark Half” (1989), he would tell a similar story about how the pseudonym “took flesh” and “took the place of the writer”

In 1982, King's novel The Gunslinger was published, which marked the beginning of the Dark Tower series, which will end in 2012 with the eighth volume, The Wind Through the Keyhole.

On June 19, 1999, in Lovell, Maine, while walking, King was hit by a minibus driver, as a result of which the writer received severe injuries and multiple fractures, and underwent a number of reconstructive surgeries. He subsequently described this event in his memoirs “How to Write Books” and in the seventh part of “The Dark Tower”, and the numbers 19 and 99 become “sacred” for him and repeatedly appear in the plots of his works. In 2002, King announced that he would stop writing, apparently due to injuries he had suffered that left him unable to sit still.

Later, he does return to work, and when asked: “Is it true that you resigned?” responds like this: “I write, but I write at a much slower pace than before... there is a lot to do outside of creativity, which is great, but creativity still plays a huge role in my life and in my daily routine.” In the 2000-2010s, a number of King’s novels were published, including “Dreamcatcher”, “Under the Dome”, “11/22/63”.

King developed his own formula for success as a writer: “read and write four to six hours a day,” set a standard for himself—2,000 words daily—and didn’t stop until it was met.

To date, Stephen King is the author of 55 novels, 5 popular science books, and about 200 short stories, most of which are collected in nine author's collections. The circulation of his works is more than 350 million copies. About 100 short and full-length films, television and animated films, and TV series have been made based on them, in almost two dozen of which the author himself played cameo roles.

According to critics, "the sharpness of his prose, attention to dialogue, disarmingly casual and frank style of presentation, passionate, furious denunciation of human stupidity and cruelty, especially of children, all together make him a truly popular writer."

In his 1990 book The Philosophy of Horror, Noel Carroll speaks of King's work as an example of modern horror literature. Analyzing the narrative style of King’s fiction and his other works not related to fiction, reflecting on the art of presenting his thoughts, he writes that for King “horror is always a competition between the normal and the abnormal, in which the normal will again become dominant in the end.”

For his work, King received many prestigious literary awards, including the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the British Fantasy Society Award. His story "The Way Station" was nominated for a Nebula Award, and his short story "The Man in the Black Suit" received an O. Henry Award. Throughout his literary career, he received numerous awards for his contributions to literature. In 2003, he was awarded a medal from the National Book Foundation, and in 2014, the US National Medal of the Arts with the wording “for combining compelling stories with analysis of human nature.”

Since 1971, Stephen King has been married to Tabitha Spruce, whom he met while studying at the university. The King family owns real estate in Bangor and Lovell, Maine, and often lives in a mansion near the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida, in the winter. Stephen and Tabitha King have three children (daughter Naomi, sons Owen and Joseph) and four grandchildren. King's wife and sons are also involved in literary work: Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Owen King published his first collection, We Are All Together: Tales and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hilstrom King writes under the pseudonym Joe Hill; in 2005, he published a collection of short stories, Ghosts of the 20th Century, and in 2007, his debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was published.

King is a baseball fan. He helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the 1989 Maine Little League championship. He often attends games of his favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, and mentions it in his works. In 1992, the Kings sponsored the construction of Mansfield Stadium, and in 2002, Stephen King made the first pitch at the opening match of the International Senior League Baseball.

Biography

... this happened when I was thirteen or fifteen years old - and I firmly believe that this is the ideal age for reading Lovecraft. Lovecraft's prose is ideal for people living in a state of oppressive sexual uncertainty: in my opinion, there is something Jungian in the imagery of his stories. They're all about giant, faceless vaginas and creatures with teeth.

Original text(English)

It did at the time, when I was 13, 14, 15 - which I maintain is the perfect age to read Lovecraft. Lovecraft is the perfect fiction for people who are living in a state of sort of total sexual doubt, because the stories almost seem to me sort of Jungian in their imagery. They're all about gigantic disembodied vaginas and things that have teeth.

- Andrew O'Hehir."The Salon Interview: Stephen King"

When asked many years later why he wrote, King replied:

Success

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Richard Bachman) - books “Rage”, “The Long Walk”, “Road Works”, “The Running Man”, and “Thinner”. The idea was to see if he could repeat his success again, since he feared that his success was an accident, a coincidence. Another explanation is that the publishing standard of that time allowed only one book per year. The surname Bachman was not taken by chance; he is a fan of the musical group Bachman-Turner Overdriv.

The pseudonym Richard Bachman was exposed by a Washington DC bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, who noticed similarities between Bachman's old works and King's new works; he discovered King's last name on one of Bachman's novels in the Library of Congress. This led to a press release foreshadowing Bachmann's imminent death, allegedly from "cancer." This pseudonym has a fictional biography. The books of Bachman, supposedly deceased (died of "pseudonym cancer"), were published by his also fictional widow, Claudia Innes Bachman. Interestingly, Claudia is mentioned in the Dark Tower series as the author of the book "Charlie Choo-Choo" in the key world (in other worlds the author is the fictional Beryl Evans). In the book, her name is spelled differently (Claudia y Innes Bachman - 19 letters). We can say that Claudia Bachman is also King's pseudonym. King also used other pseudonyms, such as John Sweeten for the novel The Fifth Quarter. King dedicated his book to this story in 1989, “The Dark Half,” about how the pseudonym took flesh and took the place of the writer, “dedicated to the late Richard Bachman,” and in 1996, when Stephen King’s novel “Hopelessness” was published, and with it and the novel “Regulators” in the author line, the surname “Bachman” was indicated.

King was conscious enough to give his relatives' numbers to a sheriff's deputy to contact his family, but he was in pain. The author was first taken to North Cumberland Hospital in Bridgeton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. He suffered a damaged right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, a head wound and a fractured femur, and was kept on a ventilator until July 9. The damage to the leg was so great that doctors initially suggested amputation, but they managed to save the leg thanks to rigid fixation. After five surgeries in ten days and physical therapy, King began writing again in July, although his femur was still broken and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain intensified and soon became unbearable. He subsequently described this event in his memoirs “How to Write Books” and in the seventh part of “The Dark Tower”, including introducing “sacred” numbers into the plot - 19 and 99. King also took part in the creation of a mini-television series of fifteen episodes under entitled "Royal Hospital", in which a similar event appears.

King's lawyer and his attorneys tried to stop Smith's minivan from being sold on eBay and buy it. Much to King's disappointment, the minivan was later crushed in a junkyard; he dreamed of smashing it with a baseball bat once he could walk. In an interview with Terry Gross for Fresh Air magazine, he admitted that afterward he still wanted to completely destroy the car. During this time, Tabitha King designed his studio; after King visited there, he said he saw what his studio would look like if he died - this gave him ideas for the novel Lizzie's Story.

Film adaptations of works

Opinion about modern culture

King came up with his formula for learning to write well:

He set a quota for himself, 2000 words every day, and doesn't stop until it's met. He also came up with a simple definition for writing talent:

Shortly after being hit by a car, King wrote the first draft of Dreamcatcher using a notepad and a Waterman pen, which he called "the best word processor in the world."

King often uses writers as characters in his novels or includes references to fictional books in short stories, such as Paul Sheldon, the protagonist in Misery and Jack Torrance in The Shining, and the creator of the fictional town of Castle Rock. In September 2009, it was announced that he would be writing for Fangoria. He is also often asked why he writes such terrible stories, to which he responds with another question:

King spoke with the creators of the television series “Lost”, their conversation can be read on the pages of the newspaper “Entertainment Weekly”. Rumors that King wrote a book related to the series “The Evil Twin” Under the pseudonym Gary Troup were not confirmed. The author “really loves” the dog Snoopy, “mentions him in almost every novel.” King is a fan of the punk band Ramones. The refrain from their iconic song “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Hey-ho, let’s go!” became the epigraph to the second part of the novel “Pet Sematary”. As a token of gratitude, the Ramones wrote the song “Pet Sematary” (distorted in English). "Pet cemetery" ), which sounds in the film of the same name. He likes Joan Rowling's novel Harry Potter. He once answered the question, “Will kids and adults still be excited about Harry in 100 years or 200?” So:

Literary criticism opinion

Critics were generally favorable to King, with the exception of the award story.

Science fiction writers John Clute and Peter Nichols give mostly positive assessments of his work, noting the following: “the sharpness of his prose, attention to dialogue, disarmingly casual and frank style of presentation, passionate, furious denunciation of human stupidity and cruelty, especially children, all together this makes him a truly popular writer." In his 1990 book The Philosophy of Horror, Noel Carroll describes King's work as an example of modern horror literature. Analyzing the narrative style of King’s fiction and his other works not related to fiction, reflecting on the art of presenting his thoughts, he writes that for King: “Horror is always a competition between the normal and the abnormal, in which the normal will again become dominant in the finale.” Critic S. T. Joshi, in his 2001 book Modern Fairy Tales, devoted a chapter to King's work. Joshi writes that King is best known for his "supernatural" works, which he describes as illogical, bloated, whiny, and prone to melodramatic endings. Joshi suggests that King draws strength from lived experiences that are accessible to everyone and this is evident in his constant references to the pain and joy of youth. Joshi also considers Fury (1977) and The Running Man (1982) to be King's best novels, thanks to their well-constructed plots and believable characters.

Personal life

King and his wife own three homes, one in Bangor, one in Lovell, Maine, and in the winter they regularly visit a waterfront mansion located on the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida. He and Tabitha have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen, and three grandchildren.

Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Both of the writer's sons are published authors: Owen published his first collection of short stories, We're All in This Together: Novels and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hilstrom King, who writes under the professional pseudonym Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, Ghosts of the 20th Century, in 2005. His debut novel, A Heart-Shaped Box, was published in 2007 and will be adapted into a feature film directed by Neil Jordan. King's daughter Naomi is still in a relationship with a woman named Thandeka, who works as a school theology teacher.

King is a fan of baseball and the Boston Red Sox in particular, often attending the team's games and occasionally mentioning them in his novels and short stories. In 1992, the Kings sponsored the construction of Mansfield Stadium, and in 2002, Stephen made the first pitch at the opening match of the International Senior League Baseball. He helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the 1989 Maine Little League Championship. He recounts his experience in The New Yorker through an essay entitled "Head Down," which also appears in the collection Nightmares and Fantasies.

Stephen King in popular culture

see also

• Joseph Hillstrom King

Notes

1. Robert Morgan, Stephen King, BBC Newsnight Wednesday, 22 November, 2006
2. The Nebula Awards are given annually by the Science Fiction Writers of America, to acknowledge excellence in science fiction writing.
3. Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Stephen King Introduction by Walter Mosley
4. FORUMS du CLUB Stephen King (CSK)
5. Rougek L. A heart in which fear lives. Stephen King: life and work. - M.: AST: Astrel, 2011. - P. 405.
6. "An Interview with Stephen King" by Phil Konstantin
7. The “Stephen King” program from the “Barnes & Noble” series. Meet the Writers (with Steve Bertrand)" (see time - 5:45). "Youtube"(November 3, 2009). Retrieved November 14, 2011.
8. Translation cit. By: Rougek L. A heart in which fear lives. Stephen King: Life and Work / Lisa Rougek; lane from English N. Balashova. - M.: AST: Astrel, 2011. - P. 52-53., original English text - by Andrew O'Hehir: The Salon Interview - Stephen King (eng) (September 24, 1998). Archived from the original on February 3, 2012. Retrieved November 14, 2011.
9. Stephen King, bio originally written by Tabitha King, updated by Marsha DeFilippo.
10. King, Stephen: “Stephen King’s Keynote Address, Vermont Library Conference,” VEMA Annual Meeting, May 26, 1999. http://www.horrorking.com/interview7.html
11. Stephen King's Advice to Writers
12. Stephen king is often sells the rights to screen their works for one dollar
13. Why did you write books as Richard Bachman?
14. Bachman-Turner Overdrive founder searched for Stephen King by Steve Newton on January 13, 2009
15. Stephen King, Why I Was Bachman
16. What Is Stephen King Trying to Prove? By STEPHEN J. DUBNER August 13, 2000
17. CNN Horror author Stephen King was seriously injured when he was struck by a minivan while walking in North Lovell, Maine, Saturday, Maine State Police said June 20, 1999
18. Stephen King run down by distracted driver Monday 21 June 1999
19. Origin of Stephen King's novel, LISEY'S STORY
20. Video interview King in 2001, he talks about his new novel the Dreamcatcher, the health and the death Bryan Smith.
21. Is it true that you have retired?Not yet
22. King's Latest Cast Feels Real By JANET MASLIN Published: November 11, 2009
23. Stephen King's Glass Menagerie By JAMES PARKER Published: November 5, 2009
24. StephenKing.com is proud to announce The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole. The next installation of the epic series is set for release in 2012.
25. Sons of Anarchy (TV Series 2008–) - IMDb (English) on the Internet Movie Database
26. Exclusive art: Stephen King-the comic book!
27. ["http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Stephen_King Writing Style Stephen King]
28. by Stephen King, reprinted in Sylvia K. Burack, ed. The Writer's Handbook. Boston, MA: Writer, Inc., 1988: 3-9
29. Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully in Ten Minutes
30. Horror master Stephen King struck by vehicle
31. When Stephen King met the "Lost" boys…
32. Stephen King, novel “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” (1999).
33. Stephen King July 23, 2000 Wild About Harry The fourth novel in J. K. Rowling's fantastically successful series about a young wizard.

Questionnaire

Named:
Stephen Edwin King.

Almost basketball height:
~ 195 cm.

And not fat:
~ 90 kg.

Relatives (who cares?):

• Mother - Nellie Ruth Pillsberry (died of cancer in 1973).
• Father - Donald King (left the family when King was 2 years old).
• Brother - David Victor King (senior).
• Wife - Tabitha Spruce (dedicated several books to her).
• Children:
  1. Owen Phillip King;
  2. Joseph Hillstorm King;
  3. Naomi Rachel King.

Education:

• Durham Primary School.
• Lisbon Falls High School.
• University of Maine at Orono.

His contact address (not verified):

49 Florida Avenue, Bangor, Maine, 04401 USA.

47 West Broadway Bangor, ME United States

Fears:

• Others (paranoia).
• Of death.
• Insects (especially spiders, flies and beetles).
• Closed spaces.
• Rat.
• Deformities.
• Squelching things.
• Darkness.
• Someone else.

Actually biography

Was born
September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine. He was the only child of Nellie Ruth Pillsberry and Donald King (his older brother was adopted 2 years before his birth). Poor family relationships led to the fact that when King was 2 years old, their father left the family. Thus, the King brothers were raised by their mother.

Childhood
They spent time traveling between the states of Massachusetts (the city of Malden) and Maine (the town of Pownal) where they had relatives on their mother’s side.

Beginning of a writing career
In January 1959, Stephen and his brother David decided to publish their own local newspaper, called Dave's Jokes. David bought a mimeograph and began printing a newspaper with a circulation of 20 copies, which he sold for 5 cents per issue. Stephen wrote articles and reviews of television shows that had not yet been released, and they were a success, which could not help but inspire inspiration. Some of his stories sold for 30 cents apiece.

First collection of stories
In 1963, Stephen King published a collection of 18 short stories called People, Places and Beasts - Volume I. It included stories such as:

First real publications
King wrote the story "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber" in 1965. It was first published in Comics Review and was approximately 6,000 words long. The first professional publication took place in 1967, when Startling Mystery Stories accepted his story "The Glass Floor".

Graduation
Stephen King graduated from Lisbon Falls High School in 1966. Looking back on his time in school, King said: "My high school career was ordinary, I was neither among the best nor among the worst."

University of Maine
Immediately after graduating from high school, Stephen entered the University of Maine and in the same year began writing a novel called Getting It On. During his freshman year, he completed his first full-length novel, The Long Haul. When asked to publish it by the publishing house Bennet Cerf/Random House, he was refused. King took the publisher’s refusal seriously and put the novel aside for a long time.

During the same course, King received a small fee of $35 for the story "Glass Floor", published in Startling Mystery Stories.

As a student, Stephen wrote a weekly column for the Maine Campus student newspaper, was a member of the Student Senate, and supported the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, believing that the Vietnam War was unconstitutional.

While studying, Stephen met his future wife, Tabitha Spruce.

Upon graduating from the University in 1970, Stephen received a Bachelor of Science degree in English and an opportunity to teach in secondary schools.

The beginning of family life
Stephen King and Tabitha Jane Spruce were married on January 2, 1971. Since Stephen was unable to find work as a school teacher immediately after graduating from University, they had to live on modest earnings from working in the laundry, Tabitha's savings and occasional royalties for publishing stories in magazines for men like "Cavalier" (many of these stories were later included in the collection "Night Shift").

Dark tower
One day, while rummaging through the library, King discovered Robert Browning's poem "Little Roland Came to the Dark Tower." Thanks to this book, he got the idea of ​​writing the Dark Tower saga. But, due to lack of money to write such a voluminous novel, he abandoned it. At the time, King was working part-time at a gas station for $1.25 an hour.

First big money
At this time, Stephen begins work on a story about the girl Carriet White. After writing a few pages, he throws it away, thinking that the story is bad. His wife became interested in the story and, after reading it, convinced her husband to continue the work. After finishing Carrie in 1973, King sent it to Doubleday and received an advance of $2,500. The novel immediately becomes very popular, which allows the Doubleday publishing house to sell the rights to reprint it to NAL for $400,000. Stephen King was owed HALF! This gave him the opportunity to leave his job as a teacher and focus only on writing.

Horror writer
Stevens' next published novel was written during a winter he spent at a summer house on Lake Sebago, where his family was forced to move due to his mother's deteriorating condition. After the publication of The Fate of Jerusalem, originally titled The Second Coming, King gained status as a horror writer.

Changes publishing house
King decides to part ways with Doubleday and sign a contract with NAL for several reasons. The main reason was money. Another reason was the book covers. When publishing the novel "The Dead Zone", the cover turned out to be more lively and attractive than those made by Doubleday.

Further fate
Since then, Stephen King has published more than 50 books and become one of the highest paid writers. Publishers around the world are fighting for the opportunity to publish his new novels. In 1998, King was ranked 31st on the Forbes Top 40 List of Entertainers, earning approximately $40 million in one year...

Almost died
In 1999, Stephen King was hit by a car while jogging along the side of the road in North Lowell, not far from his country home. He received many fractures and internal injuries, was bedridden for quite a long time and underwent rehabilitation.

Ends his writing career
In September 2002, Stephen King spoke in the American media and stated that he intended to end his writing career after finishing work on the Dark Tower saga.

Richard Bachman

Questionnaire

Known as:
Richard Bachman.

Born:
Early forties (New York).

Native:

• Wife - Claudia Ines Bachman;
• Children - a boy (died at six years old).

Official biography

Was born
In the early forties in New York.

Childhood
His childhood and adolescence are obscure, but it is known that as a young man he served in the Coast Guard for four years and then spent 10 years in the Merchant Marine.

Farming
He later settled in New Hampshire and began working on his medium-sized dairy farm. During the day he did housework and at night he wrote books (he suffered from chronic insomnia).

Child
He and his wife Claudia Bachmann had a child. He died tragically at the age of six, falling into a well and choking.

Illness and death
In 1982, Bachman underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor. But, despite the fact that the operation was successful, three years later he died of pseudonym cancer.

Results of his life
Bachman managed to write 5 books:

Collection and processing of information ChAko

How Bachmann's secret was revealed

Steve Brown is the man who discovered that Bachman was King.
Below is his story of how it happened.

One day I was reading an advance copy of Thinner, and within two pages I said, “This is either Stephen King or his best impersonator.” I assumed that it was Stephen King after all.

I didn't take it seriously - it was kind of a game. I took the subway to the Library of Congress to look at copyright documents. All but the oldest were in the name of Kirby McCauley - an interesting find, since Kirby was an agent of King, but nothing has yet been clarified. The McCauleys had many clients.

I'm almost stuck on this since the oldest book was copyrighted before computer accounting was introduced. But I still insisted that the clerk manually find this document for me. When I was handed the documents, I saw the name and address: Stephen King, Bangor, PC. Maine. I photocopied all the documents and went home.

I admire and respect King, and I had no desire to do anything that could harm him. So I made copies of all the materials and sent him a letter explaining my findings. I told him that I would like to write a short article regarding this, but if for some reason King did not want it, then he should let me know and I would promise to keep it secret. I sent the package to King via Kirby McCauley and waited for a response.

Two weeks passed. Finally, I was called over the intercom at the large bookstore where I worked: “Steve Brown, they want to hear you on line 5.”

I didn't think he would call since I didn't bother to give him my phone number or even the name of the store. He spent the entire day calling every bookstore in the area trying to find me!

Anyway, we talked for a while and he gave me his unregistered home number and asked me to call him back in the evening.

I ran out and bought a voice recorder that connects to my phone. After which I interviewed Stephen King over the course of three nights directly over the phone. He was very relaxed and always cheerful. He didn't seem upset to me. King was extremely kind and said that he would not talk to anyone other than me, and that I would therefore have an exclusive interview on the matter.

It took time to arrange everything and find a publisher. All this time, King kept in touch with me and told me that "Slimming" was a success. Finally, I published an article in the Washington Post, after which everyone knew who Bachman really was.

My interview (with adjustments insisted on by the Washington Post) was later republished in a collection of essays about King's work, Kingdom of Fear, published by Underwood/Mille.

I emphasize that I never made the slightest hint of blackmail, that King spoke to me of his own free will and himself offered to give an interview. I think he knew that everything would be revealed sooner or later, and he liked the situation when the truth was found out by an unknown clerk from Washington, and not by the New York Times or anyone else.

I also want to emphasize that I did all this out of respect for the person, and also because it was a wildly interesting game. I didn't do this for the money! King mentioned me in the introduction to the original edition of Bachman's books, but this mention disappeared in subsequent editions.

Translation from English by Dmitry Golomolzin (The Works of Stephen King)

Lisa Rougek "The Heart Where Fear Lives. Stephen King: Life and Work"

annotation:

Stephen King.
One of the most popular and commercially successful authors of the 20th century?
A talented science fiction writer, the author of the Dark Tower series, which has not even a cult, but a mythical status?
Poet, literary critic and publicist?
All this - and much more?
Who does Stephen King consider himself to be?
How does he evaluate his enormous literary success? For what reasons does he plan to quit writing from time to time - or at least abandon the “horror” films that made him the idol of millions of readers around the world?
Who can tell you about this better than the King of Horrors himself?..

Impressions about the book:

Vadim Erlikhman "The King of the Dark Side. Stephen King in America and Russia"

annotation:

It is surprising that despite the incredible popularity of Stephen King’s works in Russia, there have still been no significant publications about him in Russian. The book by researcher and translator Vadim Erlikhman is intended to fill this annoying gap. Readers will find a fascinating story about the life of one of the most famous writers of our time, an exciting journey through the plots of his books and the many films based on them.

There are a huge number of talented and revered writers in the world, but not all of them managed to become a legend during their lifetime. The biography of Stephen King is no less fascinating than his works. This man achieved world fame and recognition at a young age.

Amazingly, even those people who are far from horror and from reading in general know about it. Stephen King's books are a cocktail of genres, extraordinary fantasy, wild imagination; films based on his stories riveted a huge part of the population to the silver screen, made them cry, laugh, tremble with horror and empathize with the main characters. But was the path to fame easy? The biography of Stephen King will tell you about this.

Childhood

The King of Horror was born on September 21, 1947. He was born to Donald King and Nellie Ruth Pillsberry, and this can be called a miracle, because the couple were convinced that Ruth could not have children. The couple's relationship did not work out, and the second child did not help strengthen the union (the first boy, David King, was adopted in 1945).

Stephen King's biography has sad sides. When he was only two years old, his father left the house to buy cigarettes and never returned. Ruth raised her two sons alone. But she did not fall into panic and despair, the active woman did not lose optimism and enthusiastically grabbed one job or another. In fact, she was a bright representative of feminism, but her hard life and the need to rely only on herself made her that way.

But numerous relatives, having learned about Ruth’s troubles, tried in every possible way to provide her with support, in particular financial. This is the reason for Stephen's constant moving from one city to another. They visited Donald's parents and Ruth's sisters.

Carier start

The biography of Stephen King also tells about the beginning of his career. The gift of writing manifested itself very early - at the age of seven. It was at this age that he tried his hand at writing. In 1959, the active King brothers decided to publish their own newspaper. It bore a simple name - “Dave's Leaf” - and was successfully distributed among relatives, acquaintances and neighbors. By the way, it's not free.

Constant moving had a negative impact on the boy's health; he also suffered from measles. My passion for writing, which later turned into my life’s work, helped me take my mind off the pain. The author's first serious work was published in 1965. The story had an interesting title - “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber.” A year after that, he graduated from school and entered the university.

In 1966, the first novel, “The Long Journey,” was written, but King was rejected by the publisher. The young man did not take criticism well and was sensitive to the fact that the book did not make the right impression. Nevertheless, the author’s works were presented to the general public. In 1979, The Long Path was released, but was published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

Stephen King: bibliography

Not many writers can boast of such efficiency. Inspiration never leaves this author, as evidenced by the huge number of books that Stephen King writes year after year. His bibliography includes over 50 novels, as well as many short stories and novellas.

The most significant and any novels:

1. "Carrie".
2. "Lot".
3. "Shine".
4. "Confrontation".
5. "Dead zone".
6. "Inflammatory with a glance."
7. "It".
8. "Misery."
9. "Tommyknockers."
10. "The Dark Half"
11. "The right things".
12. "Dolores Claiborne."
13. "Insomnia".
14. "Madder Rose".
15. "Hopelessness."
16. "Bag of Bones"
17. "Hearts in Atlantis"
18. "Dream Catcher".
19. "Mobile phone".

"Monsters are real, ghosts are too"

“Monsters are real, ghosts too. They live inside us and sometimes take over,” wrote Stephen King. Fans know quotes from his best works by heart. The expressions that the author composes have the deepest meaning and can tell a lot about his personality and attitude to life.

“What trap can compare with the trap of love?”; “Only the dead utter true prophecies” - all this is Stephen King (the quotes we cited are from the immortal cycle “The Dark Tower”).

Family

The writer is lucky: he has a large and strong family. He met his wife, Tabitha Spruce, at the university. A year after they met, they got married, and the union turned out to be indestructible. His wife gave him three children and became his main critic.

There is one interesting story about how the master of the pen threw the novel “Carrie” into the trash, deciding that the work was a failure. Tabitha saved the manuscript, read it and told King that he should finish the novel. Fortunately, he followed the wise advice. When the couple were on the verge of poverty and collapse, and saw no prospects in the foreseeable future, a phone call rang that changed their lives once and for all. The novel was accepted for publication and offered a fee of $200,000. The book made him famous, it was the beginning of the great path of the king of horrors. He said goodbye to the teaching profession and devoted himself to his favorite work.

His personal life was perfect, Stephen King's novels are selling millions of copies - this is a well-deserved success.

Film adaptations

Many wonderful films have been made based on the works of this writer. "Stephen King's Nightmares and Fantasies" is a short film. The miniseries includes nine stories in the first season. The plot is taken from three collections: “Everything to the limit”, “Night shift”, “Nightmares and fantastic visions”. The dynamic development of events and the unpredictable ending found a grateful audience. But opinions about the stories are mixed, viewers claim that in some places the filmmakers managed to convey a chilling atmosphere of horror and fear, and some suffer from shortcomings.

The talented writer Stephen Edwin King is open to society, willingly gives interviews and makes contact with people. Here are some interesting moments from his life:

• In 1999, the writer was hit by a camper while hiking. His nightmares and fears came true. Multiple injuries (broken ribs, damaged lung, cracked spine) could lead to irreversible, fatal consequences. There were fractures on the leg; at first they even wanted to amputate it. He could hardly believe in a happy outcome, but time passed, and the body recovered, of course, very slowly. During this period, the writer announced that he was retiring and yet, after a long period of time, returned to work.
• King played in a kind of rock band; it was unusual in that its members included only writers. She was successful in narrow circles and even brought in income.
• A novel called “Rage” caused mass “insanity.” The teenagers took guns and started shooting at the school. After this, the writer decided that the book should be withdrawn from sale.
• The writer has set a daily word minimum for himself (2 thousand) and does not go to bed without fulfilling the quota.
• The novel “The Running Man” was written in record time - 10 days.
• King's daughter Naomi belongs to sexual minorities. In 2000, she married a school teacher.
• King was undergoing treatment for drug addiction and
• The writer never uses a mobile phone. There is an assumption that the explanation for this fact lies in the book of the same name (“Mobilnik”).
• He has received countless awards and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Literature.

Conclusion

Stephen King's stories are written in various genres: horror, science fiction, thriller, drama, detective, fantasy. Perhaps this is why he has so many fans all over the world. Where do so many ideas and ideas come from? Is there some mysticism in this? Some people tend to think that otherworldly forces help the writer create, that magic is involved here. Most likely this is a misconception. Once every hundred years, gifted people with inexhaustible imagination and energy are born.

Stephen Edwin King was born in the fall of 1941 in the American state of Maine, in the city of Portland. The birth of a boy can be called a miracle. The fact is that Nellie Ruth Pillsbury, the mother of the future writer, was diagnosed by doctors with infertility. And when the woman married the captain of the merchant ship Donald Edward King for the second time, the couple decided to adopt the boy. They named their adopted son David Victor. And two years later, Nellie unexpectedly became pregnant. The couple had a son, Stephen Edwin.

But a common child could not make the parents’ marriage strong. The head of the family had a reputation as a ladies' man. As a sailor, he traveled all over the world. After World War II, Donald left the Navy and took a job as a salesman selling vacuum cleaners to customers. Family life weighed on him. When Stephen was 2 years old, his father disappeared from his life. The man left the house to buy cigarettes and disappeared. Mom announced to her sons that dad was kidnapped by Martians. According to some sources, the woman guessed that the “Martians” could be a pretty waitress from Connecticut.

Looking ahead, let's say that the film crew of one of the American television channels, working on a documentary film about the biography of Stephen King in the 1990s, found his negligent parent. As it turned out, he lived nearby, in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, with his Brazilian wife and four children.

After her husband's escape, Ruth, a pianist by training, had a hard time. She took on any low-paying job just to feed her sons. She worked as a saleswoman in a bakery or as a servant in rich houses. A woman moved from state to state in search of a good job. The family lived in Indiana, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Connecticut. In the end, she stopped for a long time in the town of West Durham in Maine.

Stephen King saw how hard it was for his mother, although she never complained. Even in his youth, he realized that a society of equal opportunities is a myth for naive people. In reality, life is difficult and unfair.

As a child, Steve became an involuntary witness to a terrible tragedy: before his eyes, a peer died before his eyes when he fell under the wheels of a freight train. King experienced a severe shock, after which the terrible images of death were erased from his memory for some time. They surfaced only a few years later, when he was told about the tragedy. The writer's biographers claim that this event influenced his work and inspired him to write some works.

Frequent moves undermined Stephen King's already weak health. He suffered particularly hard from measles. Then acute pharyngitis happened, which turned into a form of ear infection that is incurable with antibiotics. Three times the boy experienced hellish pain when his eardrum was pierced. Due to illness, King spent two years in first grade.

Perhaps all these life difficulties shaped the guy’s gloomy perception of reality and tastes. He loved horror films. The horror films “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Asylum”, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, “The Palace of Montezuma” and “The Sands of Iwo Jima” had an indelible impression on his psyche. Stephen King was so impressionable in his youth that even watching the cartoon “Bambi” with a forest fire scene caused painful nightmares.

The guy’s favorite books included “Hulk”, “Spider-Man”, “Superman”, novels by Ray Bradbury, as well as comics about evil spirits “Tomb of Horrors” and “Tales from the Crypt”. Stephen King later admitted that he liked the feeling of fear and “the feeling of completely losing control over the senses.”

To escape from constant illnesses, the boy, encouraged by his mother, began to write. I tried my hand at writing when I was 7 years old. Stephen King wrote a short story about the adventures of Captain Casey. The source of inspiration was a comic book about a brave captain. The boy simply retold what he had read. Mom praised the work, but at the same time noted that Steve could well create something of his own. Soon the future writer presented to her court four short stories about a white rabbit. For each of them, his mother paid him the first “fee” of 25 cents.

Creation

From that moment on, Stephen King created without stopping. His first “bestseller” was a story written based on the film “The Well and the Pendulum.” The guy printed out 40 copies of his work on a hectograph.

In 1959, 18-year-old Stephen King, along with his brother David, began publishing an information newsletter called “Dave’s Leaf.” The guys distributed it using an old mimeograph machine and sold it for 5 cents to friends, neighbors and relatives. David wrote local news, and Steve wrote film reviews and his own short stories. At the same time, Stephen King first read the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He became the guy's favorite author. According to him, after becoming acquainted with the ominous stories of the collection “Lurking in the Shadows,” he felt a sense of “coming home.”

In high school, Stephen King could not decide what to do next: go to university or volunteer in Vietnam to collect interesting facts for future work. He no longer doubted that his future life would be connected with writing. The mother convinced her son, who also had vision problems, to refuse a trip to Vietnam.

King went to college, where he began preparing for university. He also got a job at a weaving factory. Work was necessary to earn money for studies. Steve glued the packaging for the goods and put them in containers. In between work, I drove away the clouds of aggressive rats that lived in the basement. Later, these impressions became the basis for the story “Night Shift.”

In August 1966, Stephen King entered the University of Maine, choosing the department of English literature. At the same time, he studied at a pedagogical college. Steve and Dave had a hard time, because their mother sent her sons only $5 a week for pocket money, while she herself was starving.

At the university, the future “King of Horror” got married. After graduating from college with a bachelor's degree, he decided to make a living as a writer. But it did not generate income. So Stephen King and his young family subsisted on his modest earnings at the laundromat, his wife's student loan, and small royalties from the writer's short stories, which were published in magazines.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen King got a job as an English teacher at one of the Hampden schools in Maine. He continued to write, but seemed to begin to lose confidence in his literary abilities. One day, his wife found the manuscript of the novel “Carrie” thrown out by Steve in the trash bin. He threw out the draft without finishing the work. The wife read the novel and begged her husband to finish it.

In the winter of 1973, Stephen King's mother died. The woman did not live a year to see her son's first success. In 1974, one of the publishing houses began publishing the novel Carrie and paid the writer a fee of $2,500. Unexpectedly for Steve, readers liked the novel. The Doubleday publishing house sold the copyright to the work to another, larger publishing house, NAL, for $400,000. Stephen King received half the amount.

The writer left teaching and moved to the neighboring state of Colorado. His second successful novel, The Shining, was created here in Boulder.

In the late 1970s, Stephen King worked under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Some biographers of the writer claim that the publication of books under an assumed name was dictated by the novelist's lack of self-confidence. It seemed to him that the success achieved was accidental. By repeating it under a different name, King wanted to make sure otherwise. The book "Rage" was published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. But King withdrew it from sale after his novel was found in the possession of a juvenile offender who had shot his classmates in Kansas.

The name Richard Bachman appeared under several of King's novels: The Long Walk, Road Work, The Running Man, and Thinner. It is noteworthy that the writer adopted the name Bachman because he was a passionate fan of the then-famous musical group Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Stephen King had to give up his pseudonym after he was exposed by an attentive salesman at a Washington bookstore. Then the novelist announced that Bachmann had died of cancer.

The best Stephen King books appeared in the 1980s and 90s. First of all, this is the novel “The Shooter,” which became the first in the “Dark Tower” series. Also in 1982, in a record 10 days, he wrote the 300-page novel “The Running Man.”

In 1996, the book “The Green Mile” was published. This is one of Stephen King's most beloved novels. A year later, the writer entered into a contract with the publishing house Simon and Schuster, which paid him an advance of $8 million for the novel Bag of Bones, and also pledged to give 50% of the proceeds from the sale.

Many of the works of the “King of Horror” have been filmed. In 1998, Stephen King acted as a screenwriter for one of the most popular TV series of those years - the X-Files project, in which the star roles were played by and.

In the summer of 1999, a writer walking with his dog was hit by a minibus. Stephen King was diagnosed with multiple fractures of his right leg, a hip fracture, and head and lung injuries. The leg was barely saved from amputation. For a long time, the novelist could sit for no more than 40 minutes, after which the pain in his broken hip became excruciating. This event formed the basis of the 7th part of the Dark Tower series of novels, and was also reflected in one of the films in the Royal Hospital series.

In 2002, Stephen King saddened his fans with the news that he was quitting his writing career. It is still difficult for him to sit, which does not allow him to concentrate on his next masterpiece. But to the great delight of his fans, the novelist broke his promise to stop writing.

In 2004, the last part of the epic “The Dark Tower” was released. And 2 years later, the novelist presented a new work called “Lisey’s Story.”

In 2006, mystery aficionado Stephen King announced that he had found Bachman's unpublished novel Blaze. In fact, it was his own manuscript from his student days that he found, which was kept at the university all this time.

From 2008 to 2016, Stephen King pleased readers with the collection of short stories “After Sunset” and the novels “Duma Key”, “Under the Dome”, “Doctor Sleep”, “Mr. Mercedes” and “Renaissance”. In the summer of 2016, the “King of Horror” presented the third part of the novel “Mr. Mercedes,” called “The Post Passed.”

In the same year, fans of the talent of the “King of Horror” enjoyed watching a literary evening on the screens with the participation of two famous writers - Stephen King and George Martin. The meeting took place in Albuquerque.

Personal life

As mentioned above, the novelist met his future wife Tabitha Spruce at the university. During those difficult years, their son Joseph and daughter Naomi were born. Later a second son appeared - Owen. Tabitha is no stranger to literary activity - the woman also tried to create, but her nine novels were not in great demand.

Stephen King's personal life with his beloved wife was happy. Together they went through many trials. At the beginning of family life - through poverty. Later – through the novelist’s alcoholism and drug addiction. In 1999, a letter allegedly written by Stephen King appeared in one of the satirical newspapers, in which he admitted that the period of writing the novel “Tommyknockers” had fallen out of his memory.

As it turned out, the 1980s were indeed marred by King's addiction to drink and drugs. To convince the writer, who denied his addictions, to see a doctor, his relatives “collected” evidence: they dumped beer cans, Valium, cocaine and marijuana packages found in the trash in front of him. Only then, with horror seeing all this “wealth” on the carpet, did Stephen King recognize the disease and seek help from specialists.

The first work he wrote after his recovery was the novel “Necessary Things.”

Together with his wife, Stephen King owns three estates: in Bangor, Lovell and Sarasota. The family visits the latter in winter. It is located on the shores of the warm Gulf of Mexico in Florida.

Today the writer and his wife have four grandchildren.

Stephen King's sons also took their first steps into writing. Naomi's daughter is not interested in writing. She is known for being in a relationship with theology teacher Thandeka.

In his free time, Stephen King attends games of his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. In the 1990s, the couple sponsored the construction of the Mansfield Stadium, and in 2014, the writer took part in raising funds for people who suffer from amyotrophic sclerosis.

Bibliography

• 1974 – “Carrie”
• 1977 – “Shine”
• 1982 – “Shooter”
• 1983 – “Pet Sematary”
• 1987 – “Extracting the Three”
• 1991 – “Badlands”
• 1996 – “Green Mile”
• 1997 – “The Sorcerer and the Crystal”
• 2003 – “Wolves of Kalya”
• 2004 – “Song of Suzanne”
• 2004 – “The Dark Tower”
• 2012 – “The Wind Through the Keyhole”