"THE MAN IN BLACK FLED ACROSS THE DESERT, AND THE GUNSLINGER FOLLOWED": FINE COMPLETE FIRST EDITION SET OF STEPHEN KING'S DARK TOWER SERIES

KING, Stephen. The Dark Tower. Volume I: The Gunslinger. WITH: Volume II: The Drawing of the Three. WITH: Volume III: The Waste Lands. WITH: Volume IV: Wizard and Glass. WITH: Volume V: Wolves of the Calla. WITH: Volume VI: Song of Susanna. WITH: Volume VII: The Dark Tower. West Kingston, Rhode Island and Hampton Falls, New Hampshire: Donald M. Grant, (1982-2004). Together, seven volumes. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jackets. $7000.

First trade editions of all seven books in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, including the scarce first book, issued in a first printing of only 10,000 copies. Each book with full-page color illustrations.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." With those words—inspired by Robert Browning's Childe Roland and Sergio Leone's film, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and typed on an old Underwood in 1970—King struck the initial notes of a saga 34 years in the completion. "Many of my fictions," King reflected, "refer back to Roland's world and Roland's story… My idea was to use the Dark Tower stories as a kind of summation, a way of unifying as many of my previous stories as possible…" 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). Generously illustrated with beautiful full-page color plates by Michael Whelan (I, VII), Phil Hale (II), Ned Dameron (III), Dave McKean (IV), Bernie Wrightson (V) and Darrel Anderson (VI).

A fine set, exceptional in this condition.