PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION OF THE SHINING, INSCRIBED AND ADDITIONALLY INITIALED BY STEPHEN KING TO THE FOUNDER OF THE AUGUST DERLETH SOCIETY

KING, Stephen. The Shining. Garden City: Doubleday, 1977. Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $7500.

First edition of King's third novel, "a masterwork, a bold product of an original vision," a presentation/association copy from the collection of Richard "Dick" Fawcett, founder of the August Derleth Society, boldly inscribed by King with his address, "Stephen King Box 238 Center Lovell, ME, 04016," along with another inscription initialed by him on the same page, "Nice to meet you, by the way… S.K./."

Inspired by Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death," King's first hardcover bestseller is "his consummate ghostly tale" about "the haunted house to end all haunted houses" (Underwood & Miller, 174, 184). "The fact is that The Shining is a masterwork, a bold product of an original vision, a novel of astonishing passion, urgency, tenderness, understanding, and invention… In its uniting of an almost bruising literary power, a deep sensitivity to individual experience, and its operatic convictions, it is a very significant work of art" (Peter Straub). Made into the 1980 movie directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicolson and Shelley Duvall; it was later made into a 1997 TV mini-series starring Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay and with a cameo appearance by King himself. First Edition with data code "R49" at inner margin of page 447; "First Edition" stated on copyright page. Currey, 227. Brooks A4. Collings A19. Horror 100 Best Books 77. This distinctive copy is inscribed by King to Richard "Dick" Fawcett, who founded the August Derleth Society upon discovering Derleth's book, Walden West, which Fawcett calls "the heartbeat of middle America preserved in amber" (Lachman, Heirs of Anthony Boucher, 69). Fawcett has also been the longtime editor and publisher of the society's popular and informative newsletter. Stephen King once wrote of Derleth, the prolific novelist who co-founded Arkham House: "August Derleth and Arkham House published what I regard as [weird fiction's] most important works in the period 1939-1950" (Haefele, August Derleth Redux, 44). King also honored Derleth in naming him, along with Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley and H.P. Lovecraft, as a dedicatee of King's 2014 work Revival, and The New York Times singled out Derleth as "the author of more than 100 books that King must have devoured as a boy and a seminal figure in the creation of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos horror genre." King has earned the British Fantasy Society's famed August Derleth Award for Best Novel for Cujo (1983), It (1982), Bag of Bones (1999) and Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2005).

A pristine copy in fine condition, wonderfully inscribed.