"HER WHOLE LIFE HAD BEEN A LONG AND EASY DREAM TO LULL HER HELPLESSLY INTO THIS WAKING NIGHTMARE"

KING, Stephen. The Shining. Garden City: Doubleday, 1977. Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. $4000.

First edition of King's third novel, a "masterwork, a bold product of an original vision."

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). Basis for the 1980 movie directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicolson and Shelley Duvall; later made into a 1997 TV mini-series starring Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay, 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.

Book in fine condition; dust jacket about-fine, back panel with inked date in one corner, spine with slight toning and traces of wear to foot. An unusually nice copy.