“THE MAN IN BLACK FLED ACROSS THE DESERT, AND THE GUNSLINGER FOLLOWED”: COMPLETE SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION SET OF STEPHEN KING’S EPIC, THE DARK TOWER, 1982-2004, WITH SIGNED LIMITED EDITIONS OF THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA AND THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE

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 [in two volumes]: Wizard and Glass. WITH: Volume V [in two volumes]: Wolves of the Calla. WITH: Volume VI: Song of Susanna. WITH: Volume VII [in two volumes]: The Dark Tower. WITH: The Little Sisters of Eluria. WITH: The Wind Through the Keyhole. WITH: The Wind Through the Keyhole. West Kingston, Rhode Island and Hampton Falls, New Hampshire: Donald M. Grant, 1982-2012. Together, thirteen volumes. Octavo (save Little Sisters, which is quarto), original cloth (Little Sisters and Wind Through the Keyhole in full snakeskin-textured leatherette), original dust jackets, original slipcases (Little Sisters and Wind Through the Keyhole in original full snakeskin-textured leatherette clamshell box).

Signed limited first editions, issued simultaneously with the first trade editions, of all seven titles in Stephen King’s masterful Dark Tower series, as well as the signed limited deluxe first editions of the companion volumes The Little Sisters of Eluria and The Wind Through the Keyhole and the English Collector's Edition of The Wind Through the Keyhole, each book with full-page color illustrations and each signed by King and the illustrator.

"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). The later additions of The Little Sisters of Eluria (2004) and The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) occur in the same universe, although Little Sisters' story precedes the rest of the stories in the timeline and Wind Through the Keyhole's story takes place between the fourth and fifth volumes in the series. 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). With different numbered copies of the various limitations, which range in size from 800 (I) to 1500 (VII). This set also includes The Little Sisters of Eluria, King's revised and expanded version of The Gunslinger, published in both a signed limited artist's edition of 4000 copies signed by illustrator Whelan and a smaller signed limited deluxe edition, from which the present copy hails, of 1250 copies, signed by both Whelan and King. Also includes the signed limited first edition of The Wind Through the Keyhole, one of 800 copies signed by both King and artist Jae Lee, and the English collector's signed limited edition of the same title, one of 200 copies signed by both King and Lee. With a copy of the limited first edition of Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Towers: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus (Baltimore, 2005), one of 1000 copies signed by Vincent.

Fine condition. A wonderful set, with a total of ten Stephen King signatures.