FIRST EDITIONS OF STEPHEN KING’S FIRST FOUR DARK TOWER BOOKS

KING, Stephen. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. WITH: The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three. WITH: The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. WITH: The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass. West Kingston, Rhode Island and Hampton Falls, New Hampshire: Donald M. Grant, (1982-97). Four Volumes. Octavo, original black, red, and burgundy cloth, original dust jackets. $6000.

First trade editions of the first four books in Stephen King’s continuing Dark Tower series, including the rare first book, issued by small press publisher Donald M. Grant in a first printing of only 10,000 copies.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." When King typed those words on an old Underwood in 1970, he began a daring fantasy saga that would be 34 years in the completion. Gunslinger, the first book in his Dark Tower series, is "an impressive work of mythic magnitude that may turn out to be King's greatest literary achievement" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). These novels, the work of a lifetime, are "different in tone from most of Stephen King's work—and perhaps more demandingly inventive than usual—these have an undeniable mythic charge" (Clute & Nichols, 666). "Each of the novels is a mélange of motifs and ideas borrowed from horror, fantasy, Western and science fiction… King's narrative strategy and plot mechanics for the individual installments of the series show a wide variety of influences, ranging from L. Frank Baum's Oz novels to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales… [King indulges] some of his most fanciful and extravagant horrors" (Fantasy and Horror 6-194). With illustrations by 14-time Hugo Award winner Michael Whelan, Phil Hale, Ned Dameron, and World Fantasy Award winner Dave McKean. With laid-in publisher's promotion.

Fine condition.