"'AUTHORS' CHOICE' COLLECTION OF WORKS… BY WRITERS AT THE TOP OF THEIR FORM, PUBLISHED HERE—AND IN SOME CASES HERE ALONE—IN THEIR DEFINITIVE VERSIONS": SIGNED BY STEPHEN KING, RAY BRADBURY AND MANY MORE

(KING, Stephen; MARTIN, George R.R.; BRADBURY, Ray, et al.) ETCHISON, Dennis, editor. The Complete Masters of Darkness. Novato, CA; Lancaster, PA: Underwood-Miller, 1990. Large thick octavo, original half black leatherette, original dust jacket, original cloth clamshell box with pictorial paper spine label. $3800.

Deluxe signed limited first collected and first hardcover edition, copy 4 of only 345 printed, of this anthology of 45 tales of terror by renowned "Masters of Darkness" including Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz and many more—each story selected for this collection by the author—signed by the editor and 39 of the authors (including all those mentioned here).

This is the first collected and first hardcover edition of the three volumes of Tor's Masters of Darkness anthology series, all originally published in paperback: Masters of Darkness in 1986, Masters of Darkness II in 1988 and Masters of Darkness III in 1990 (after the publication of the present hardcover collected edition). The collection includes "The Woman in the Room" by Stephen King (a harrowing tale of a man planning to euthanize his ailing mother with sleeping pills, the basis for the 1983 film by Frank Árpád Darabont, who would go on to direct three other King adaptations: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist), "The Monkey Treatment" by George R.R. Martin, "Family" by Joyce Carol Oates and "The Dead Man" by Ray Bradbury, along with stories by Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Joe Haldeman, Frank Belknap Long, Fritz Leiber, Tanith Lee, Jack Vance, David Morrell, Brian Lumley, L. Sprague de Camp, Clive Barker, Jack Williamson, Gardner Dozois, Algis Budrys, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Dean Koontz and dozens more. The authors have also contributed notes regarding the stories they selected. Spaces were marked on four preliminary leaves for 40 signatures, including that of the editor Dennis Etchison. Joseph Payne Brennan did not sign above his printed name (he died in January of 1990) and in most copies, there were five other contributors who did not sign, with no space having been provided for them: Richard McKenna (died 1964), Manley Wade Wellman (died 1986), Tanith Lee, Dean Koontz, Frank Belknap Long, and Ray Russell. In this copy, Koontz has added his signature in the empty space on the last signature page, and a Masters of Darkness bookplate signed by Tanith Lee (dated 2010), James Herbert and Lisa Tuttle is laid in. Brooks B58.

A fine signed copy, particularly desirable with the extra signatures.