Stephen King: Fairy Tale (2022)

Stephen King: Fairy Tale (2022)

With the appearance of his latest, Fairy Tale, Stephen King has published no fewer than sixty-six novels - by my reckoning, at least. That's a lot of novels. Mind you, Wikipedia gives the grand total as 64, but then I've counted in the novel-length screenplay Storm of the Century (1999) and the incomplete online novel The Plant (2000), whereas they included those in different sections of their listings.

These novels include seven written under the pseudonym 'Richard Bachman'; five in collaboration (two with Peter Straub, two with Richard Chizmar, and one with his son Owen King); eight in the 'Dark Tower" fantasy series; three 'Hard Case Crime' paperbacks; and three which have been substantially revised and reissued in new forms since their first appearance: The Stand, The Gunslinger, and 'Salem's Lot.

There's also one, The Green Mile, which was originally published in monthly parts, presumably as an hommage to an earlier fictional entertainer, 'Mr Popular Sentiment' himself (in Anthony Trollope's sarcastic phrase), Charles Dickens.

Most (though by no means all) are set in King's native state, Maine - many in the imaginary towns of Castle Rock and Derry. Others, however, are set in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even the windy city, Chicago.

There are a couple of interesting cross-connected novel experiments in the King canon: Gerald's Game & Dolores Claiborne (1992), both of which centre around dark deeds done during a total eclipse of the sun in 1962; and Desperation & The Regulators (1996), which treat analogous acts performed by two sets of characters with the same names, but composed, respectively, in the manner of King and his alter ego Richard Bachman.

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Stephen King (Sept 21, 1947- )

But why provide so much detail here on Stephen King's bibliography? Well, a year or so ago I was talking to a colleague of mine at Massey Uni, Erin Mercer, and she mentioned a plan she'd devised of rereading all of his novels over summer.

All? I asked.

All.

Every single one? Including all the series and one-offs?

All of them.

I have to say that I had my doubts about the feasibility of this feat. I mean, it's taken me quite a long time to collect them, and it was hard to credit that anyone else could be quite so obsessive. It seems that she managed it, though, and that has inspired me to do the same. Hence the need for this post, to record some of my conclusions while they're still fresh in my mind.

First of all, though, a few listings to establish the precise parameters of the project:

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Stephen King: Carrie (1974)

Novels:
(Chronological)

1. Carrie (1974)
2. Salem's Lot (1975 / 2004)
3. The Shining (1977)
4. [as Richard Bachman] Rage (1977)
5. The Stand (1978 / 1990)
6. [as Richard Bachman] The Long Walk (1979)
7. The Dead Zone (1979)
8. Firestarter (1980)
9. [as Richard Bachman] Roadwork (1981)
10. Cujo (1981)
11. [as Richard Bachman] The Running Man (1982)
12. The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower 1 (1982 / 2003)
13. Christine (1983)
14. Pet Sematary (1983)
15. Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
16. [with Peter Straub] The Talisman (1984)
17. The Eyes of the Dragon (1984)
18. [as Richard Bachman] Thinner (1984)
19. It (1986)
20. The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower 2 (1987)
21. Misery (1987)
22. The Tommyknockers (1987)
23. The Dark Half (1989)
24. The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower 3 (1991)
25. Needful Things (1991)
26. Gerald's Game (1992)
27. Dolores Claiborne (1992)
28. Insomnia (1994)
29. Rose Madder (1995)
30. The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts (1996)
31. Desperation (1996)
32. [as Richard Bachman] The Regulators (1996)
33. Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower 4 (1997)
34. Bag of Bones (1998)
35. Storm of the Century (1999)
36. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
37. The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress (2000)
38. Dreamcatcher (2001)
39. [with Peter Straub] Black House (2001)
40. From a Buick 8 (2002)
41. Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower 5 (2003)
42. Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower 6 (2004)
43. The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower 7 (2004)
44. The Colorado Kid (2005)
45. Cell (2006)
46. Lisey's Story (2006)
47. [as Richard Bachman] Blaze (2007)
48. Duma Key (2008)
49. Under the Dome (2009)
50. 11/22/63 (2011)
51. The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel (2012)
52. Joyland (2013)
53. Doctor Sleep: A Novel (2013)
54. Mr Mercedes: A Novel (2014)
55. Revival (2014)
56. Finders Keepers: A Novel (2015)
57. End of Watch: A Novel (2016)
58. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Button Box. Gwendy Trilogy 1 (2017)
59. [with Owen King] Sleeping Beauties (2017)
60. The Outsider: A Novel (2018)
61. Elevation (2018)
62. The Institute (2019)
63. Later (2021)
64. Billy Summers (2021)
65. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task. Gwendy Trilogy 3 (2022)
66. Fairy Tale: A Novel (2022)
67. Holly: A Novel (2023)

So there you have it: the nature of the crime. Just imagine them all lined up in one bookcase, and you have some idea of what's at stake. I haven't counted the exact number of pages they contain, but it must be in the mid-tens of thousands, at least. "How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?" as a reviewer once remarked of J. R. R. Tolkien.

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Stephen King: Fairy Tale (2022)

In order of preference:
(... extremely subjective, mind you)

[Title - date - setting - motifs - comments]:


1. The Stand (1978 / 1990) - set in Maine, Colorado, Las Vegas, etc. - plague / good vs. evil / Randall Flagg

   A wonderfully compelling book, constructed on an epic scale - King's War and Peace. There's no getting past it, really.

2. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) - set near Castle Rock, Maine - survival / psychotic bear

   A wonderful return to form for the Maine battler: a good tale well told with a compelling heroine. It's more like an over-length novella than one of his characteristically bloated tomes, but then the novella has always been one of his best modes.

3. [as Richard Bachman] The Long Walk (1979) - set in Maine - teen angst / endurance / survival

   My favourite of all the Bachman books, and actually - despite the confined and concentrated nature of the action - one of his very best novels (which is interesting, considering it was the first one he wrote, while he was still at High School!)

4. The Outsider: A Novel (2018) - set in Oklahoma & Texas - Holly Gibney / shapeshifters / detectives

   Excellent in all ways: an elegant combination of his later detective thrillers and his earlier occult masterpieces.

5. The Shining (1977) - set in Colorado - alcoholism / haunting / telepathy

   A quantum leap in King's work: still one of his best novels, well-constructed and haunting. I've often suspected that his dislike of Kubrick's epoch-making film comes down mostly to the story's immense autobiographical significance for King. There has to be hope for Jack Torrance, or else there's really none for his creator.

6. [with Peter Straub] The Talisman (1984) - set in New Hampshire, California, & places between - twinners / battle of good against evil / parallel fantasy world

   A grand attempt at a Huckleberry Finn-like Odyssey across America: compulsively readable. It's hard to tell where King stops and Straub begins, but the latter does seem to have a rather more orotund way of putting things.

7. Desperation (1996) - set in Nevada - possession / demonic creatures

   One of his strangest and most compelling novels: a kind of supernatural Western. Not to everyone's taste, but definitely to mine - very atmospheric. The washed-up, Mailer-like writer is well protrayed, also.

8. The Institute (2019) - set in Maine & South Carolina - telepathy, sinister Government agencies

   One of his very best novels, I think: a definite improvement on Firestarter, albeit occupying much the same thematic territory. The escape scenes are particularly well managed, but then, so is the picture of the institute itself.

9. It (1986) - set in Derry, Maine - aliens / killer clowns / childhood faith

   One of his longest and most ambitious works - perhaps not on the level of The Stand of The Shining, but certainly essential reading. Neither of its film treatments have really done it justice, but both have indisputable merits, too.

10. Under the Dome (2009) - set in Chester's Mill, Maine - megalomania / climate crime / childhood faith

    One of King's very best books: in it he solves the problem of combining fabular with realistic action first adumbrated in Needful Things: as it turns out, in the process he created an essential book for our times.

11. Lisey's Story (2006) - set in Maine & Boo'ya Moon - author's widow / parallel fantasy world

    A masterclass in the art of blending fantasy landscapes with a basic underlying realism: a very strong novel indeed. I haven't seen the adaptation, but if it has the effect of drawing attention to this largely unsung novel, then that's definitely a good thing.

12. Joyland (2013) - set in North Carolina - serial killer / carny folk / coming-of-age

    The best of King's 'Hard Case Crime' novels: well-written, well-plotted, and unforgettable. At heart he's always longed to be a pulp writer, and this is the perfect combo of pulp and King's perfect pitch when it comes to creating empathetic characters.

13. Mr Mercedes: A Novel (2014) - set in Ohio - serial killer / detectives / Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney

    Quite an amazing departure for King: a completely gripping Hitchcockian thriller, but written with heart. It certainly had the effect of bringing his career to life again - with a vengeance!

14. Insomnia (1994) - set in Derry, Maine - world of auras / abortion issue / the crimson king

    Underrated - the idea of producing hyperreality through insomnia is a fascinating one, as is the inclusion of a version of the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. He himself has described it as 'over-plotted' but I'd prefer to use the adjective 'rich'.

15. Misery (1987) - set in Colorado - psychotic fan / power of fiction / resourceful villain

    The first of King's beleaguered author books: and perhaps the most powerful. Some scenes are almost too gruesome for me to read, but the power of the situation drives all before it.

16. The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts (1996) - set in Cold Mountain, Georgia - prison / miracles

    A sentimentalised film treatment has handicapped this book: the original story is far better constructed, with a much harder edge. When you read it all the way through, and not in its monthly instalments, it works very well indeed as a connected novel.

17. Rose Madder (1995) - set in Chicago - fantasy world / sexual abuse

    Again, I fell this is a severely underrated novel. The transition from Roses's everyday terror to the equally threatening world of the temple and the labyrinth is very well handled. The incidental details about recording talking books are also fascinating.

18. From a Buick 8 (2002) - set in Western Pennsylvania - aliens / parallel worlds / mysterious artefact

    King channels Stanislaw Lem. It's clear proof of the skill of an author when they can make a compelling narrative with so little to hang it on: a real tour-de-force

19. The Colorado Kid (2005) - set on Moose-Lookit Island, Maine - detection / mystery / reporters

    Another tour-de-force: a novella-length meditation on the nature of evidence, if not of truth itself. Hard to fault it, really.

20. The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower 3 (1991) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    One of the best volumes in the Dark Tower saga, I think: Blaine the Mono is a finely drawn character, and it ends on the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers.

21. The Dark Half (1989) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - author protagonist / twinners / parallel fantasy world

    Continuing the author-in-crisis theme: again, this is almost too guesome to read in parts, but the underlying concept is frighteningly strong.

22. Fairy Tale: A Novel (2022) - set in Illinois - small town / parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil

    I'm not sure that the fantasy world, Empis, when we finally reach it, is quite magical enough to justify the preamble, but certainly King does a wonderful job of painting the dark world created by his anti-hero.

23. The Tommyknockers (1987) - set in Ludlow, Maine - flying saucer / alien invasion / telepathy

    This, I think, is a very underrated book: it's good SF and another fine portrait of a weird small town in crisis. The passages about alcoholism are among the most powerful King has ever written on the subject - which is saying something. It was filmed here in New Zealand - pretty well, I think.

24. Gerald's Game (1992) - set partly in Dark Score Lake, Maine - sexual abuse / imprisonment

    Some parts of this novel are so gruesome that I found myself almost physically unable to reread them. it's thematically as well as stylistically strong, though, and displays his genius for exploring the unthinkably horrible situation in all its gruesome details.

25. Billy Summers (2021) - set in 'Midwood' & in Colorado - crime / sexual abuse / revenge

    The life of a hitman is well portrayed, and there's a nice tip of the cap to the Overlook Hotel, too. It's not in the very front rank of his work, but there's little to fault in it, either.

26. Doctor Sleep: A Novel (2013) - set in Florida, Maine & Colorado - alcoholism / haunting / telepathy

    This sequel to The Shining may not be up to its predecessor, but it's still a good novel in its own right. It made a pretty good movie, too.

27. The Dead Zone (1979) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - haunting / telepathy / carny folk

    The first of the Castle Rock books: well-written and intriguing, even if not up to some of his subsequent works in this genre. The portrait it contains of a kind of proto-Trump has given King a possibly undeserved reputation for prophecy. American fascism was always bound to hit the mainstream sooner or later.

28. Salem's Lot (1975 / 2004) - set in Jerusalem's Lot, Maine - vampires / writer protagonist

    This is the first of King's microcosm stories: a well-portrayed small town in the grip of supernatural horrors beyond their comprehension. It's only in comparison with his later triumphs in this genre that it looks a bit limited now.

29. The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower 2 (1987) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    The clash of styles is one of the oddest features of the Dark Tower series as a whole: here it begins to switch from the Sergio Leone-style portentousness it began with into the frenetic melodrama it would become. It's a very readable book, though - perhaps the most immediately enjoyable of the whole series.

30. Dolores Claiborne (1992) - set in Little Tall Island, Maine - sexual abuse / murder

    This is, I think, his first use of a female protagonist speaking throughout in the first person - a device more familiar from his short fiction. To my ear, it's accomplished well - and the moment of the eclipse is captured perfectly.

31. The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel (2012) - set in Mid-World - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    A good fantasy novel, shoehorned very satisfactorily (in my view) into the Dark Tower series

32. Firestarter (1980) - set in New York & Longmont, Virginia - child in peril / telepathy / government agencies

    A pretty powerful novel - not one of his very best, but definitely well worth reading. I'm not quite sure why it's faded from readers' minds - perhaps because the competition is so stiff.

33. The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower 1 (1982 / 2003) - set in Mid-World - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    This is probably better in its original than in its rewritten form - it has little in common with the later books in the series, but that's in its favour, if anything. It does read more like a collection of linked stories than a bona-fide novel, though.

34. Carrie (1974) - set in Maine - teen angst / telepathy

    Not one of my favourites, but definitely a well-constructed thriller, strong on characterisation: the little snowball that started an avalanche ...

35. Dreamcatcher (2001) - set near Derry, Maine - aliens / Downs' Syndrome hero

    There's some great material here, but I'm not sure it succeeds as a whole - it's worth it for some of the incidental scenes, though. King is particularly keen on intellectually challenged characters: Tom Cullen in The Stand, Clayton Blaisdell in Blaze, and 'Duddits' Cavell in this novel

36. Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower 5 (2003) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    One of the best volumes in the series: mad, but interesting. I like his faux-Western flourishes here.

37. The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower 7 (2004) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    So much was left to the last volume, that the action can't help but feel a bit rushed at times - a very odd conclusion to a very odd series. I defy anyone who's read as far as this to put it down, though.

38. Later (2021) - set in Maine - telepathy / necromancy / the ritual of Chud

    This may be more of an occult thriller than a hard-boiled crime novel, but it's very well written.

39. Cujo (1981) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - feral animal / small town paranoia / child in peril

    Here King introduces one of his most powerful themes: what one might call the revolt of the Americana - in this case a beloved pet dog.

40. Elevation (2018) - set in Castle Rock - small-town paranoia / escape / death fantasies

    This is more of a novella than a novel, really, but it's very readable and quite intriguing. It's hard to know what to make of it, but need one really say more than that it's a good story, well told?

41. Cell (2006) - set in Maine & Massachusetts - terrorism / human flocks / zombie apocalypse

    I didn't really enjoy it much on first reading, but it has definitely improved on acquaintance: a good action thriller

42. Christine (1983) - set in Western Pennsylvania - evil car / haunting / Americana

    Another Americana meditation: this time constructed around the revolt of a cherished classic car. It's rather more melodramatic than Cujo, but very much in the same mode.

43. End of Watch: A Novel (2016) - set in Ohio - serial killer / detectives / Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney

    This is certainly a powerful piece of storytelling: it may not quite up to the first book in the series, but then what is? The omnipotent killer trope perhaps reaches its apotheosis here.

44. Pet Sematary (1983) - set in Ludlow, Maine - child in peril / necromancy / Americana

    If you could bring your beloved pet back to life, would you? And how far would you go before you stopped? Another grim piece of Americana. Too grim for me, but certainly a powerful concept.

45. [with Peter Straub] Black House (2001) - set in French Landing, Wisconsin - parallel fantasy world / serial killer / radio days

    This may not on the level of The Talisman (and with far too much about the so-called Sheikh of Shake, Uncle Henry), but it's a good solid thriller nevertheless. There may be a bit too much Dark Tower fallout here for those unacquainted with that series, but then that's true of much of King's mid-career output.

46. Duma Key (2008) - set in Minnesota & Florida - painting / haunting

    This has virtually the same plot as Bag of Bones, with the same problems as that novel: the Florida setting and the gallery descriptions are perhaps its best features, accordingly.

47. 11/22/63 (2011) - set in Lisbon Falls & Derry, Maine, as well as Dallas, Texas - time travel / alternate worlds / Americana

    I certainly enjoyed it, but I wouldn't see it in the front rank of his work: a good solid piece of classical SF, though. It makes an interesting - if not particularly novel - point.

48. [as Richard Bachman] Blaze (2007) - set in New England - kidnapping / abusive children's home / Americana

    Depressing, and not as poignant as perhaps it's meant to be, it seems in retrospect like a kind of trial run for Billy Summers. It's only because the other books are so good that this one can be relegated to the Bush Leagues like this, though.

49. [as Richard Bachman] Thinner (1984) - Maine Coast - carny folk / gypsy curse / weight loss

    Bachman takes on more of the trappings of King in this late novel, just before the pseudonym was discovered. It's almost as if he wanted to be found out ...

50. Finders Keepers: A Novel (2015) - set in Ohio - author's manuscripts / detectives / Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney

    I found the eventual destruction of the dead, Salinger-like writer's notebooks depressingly predictable (could not the boy have xeroxed them in his spare time?) Again, King's villains do have a way of seeming unstoppable against all odds. The weakest link in a very strong series.

51. Needful Things (1991) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - good vs. evil / materialist fable

    It's never been quite clear to me if this was intended as a purely fabular narrative or a piece of Kingian realism: it doesn't quite work for me, but it's certainly very readable.

52. [as Richard Bachman] The Regulators (1996) - set in Wentworth, Ohio - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / childhood faith

    The Bachman version is more of a curiosity than a real rival to its plot-double, Desperation: it's certainly very readable, though. Hard to know what to make of it, really.

53. The Eyes of the Dragon (1984) - set in Delain, In-World - good vs. evil / Randall Flagg / fantasy world

    This is more of a pure fantasy novel than anything that preceded it in King's work: it's not especially remarkable beyond that except that it shows his first attempts to find the right tone for his work in that genre.

54. Bag of Bones (1998) - Derry & Dark Score Lake, Maine - writer's block / haunting

    This is an exceptionally grim tale, with a sting in the tail: I think at this point some readers may have felt that King had shot his bolt as a writer. Little did they know!

55. Holly (2023) - Bridgton, Ohio - cannibalism / detection

    This is another grim tale, with a hugely loathsome pair of well-heeled cannibal killers. Holly Gibney is indeed a great character, and any power the story has certainly stems from her involvement. It's possible that she may have reached her limits as a plot catalyst now, however. The jury will have to remain out on that one.

56. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task (2022) - set in space - averting global catastrophe / dementia

    Here the twin authors try to crank up their 'Gwendy' plot to reach a climax in outer space. the result is definitely impressive, even if not in the front rank of King's other work.

57. Storm of the Century (1999) - set in Little Tall Island, Maine - vampires / small town paranoia

    I've never read a screenplay-novel before, and I did enjoy it: the mini-series itself (when I finally got to see it) was actually less interesting, I thought.

58. [as Richard Bachman] Rage (1977) - set in Maine - teen angst / gun violence

    A nicely paced thriller, subsequently repudiated by its author in the wake of claims that it inspired a slew of other school shooters. The raw talent of its youthful author is immediately apparent, though.

59. [as Richard Bachman] The Running Man (1982) - Co-Op City, Boston, New Hampshire - game shows / Americana / dystopian future

    This is very much in the mode of SF writers such as A. E. Van Vogt and other action-addicted storytellers. It's not really on the level of most of the other 'Bachman' work, though it did make a good vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

60. Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower 6 (2004) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    This is a very strange novel: perhaps the least 'standalone' narrative in the entire Dark Tower series. It's certainly readable, though.

61. Revival (2014) - set in Maine - necromancy / child in peril / dead wife

    One of my least favourite books by King. The powerful episodes he creates do not really cohere, and the idea of 'fifth business' is a bit too dominant, but his speculations on 'the secret electricity' are certainly interesting.

62. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Button Box (2017) - set in Castle Rock, Maine - materialist fable / childhood faith

    This is rather a slight premise, but well carried out by the two authors: a novella rather than a novel, really.

63. Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) - set in Tarker's Mills, Maine - werewolves / good vs. evil / calendar

    This is a strangely circumscribed work which seems to exist more for the illustrations that the plot: once again, a novella rather than a novel.

64. The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress (2000) - set in New York - magical curse / nature's revenge

    This was fun to track down: I can see why King has never been in much of a hurry to finish it, but it is entertaining to read the parts of it he managed to complete. Perhaps one day ...

65. Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower 4 (1997) - set in Mid-World & our world - parallel fantasy world / good vs. evil / western

    For me, this is the lowest point of the Dark Tower series. The romance is drawn out to inordinate length, and I found myself actually counting the pages remaining to be read: the direct opposite of my usual experience with King's long books.

66. [with Owen King] Sleeping Beauties (2017) - set in Dooling, Appalachia - parallel fantasy world / men vs. women

    This is interesting in some ways, extremely problematic in others. Overall, I think that it illustrates the difficulty of maintaining a clear balance between the real and the fantastic. Why Dooling? Who is Eve? Why does she get herself locked up at the beginning of the book and sit behind bars the whole time? The characters lack the usual precision of King people, too.

67. [as Richard Bachman] Roadwork (1981) - set in the Midwest - governmental interference / marital instability / morbid psychology

    This is probably my least favourite King novel pf all: his protagonist is far too self-indulgent and irrational for me, and the action drags as a result. Something had to come in last, and this one represents a path which I'm very pleased that he didn't pursue further.

This is the most controversial (and subjective) part of my project. I have my strong preferences among King's novels - many of them, it seems, at odds with other readers - but the great thing about his oeuvre is that it seems to be able to accommodate virtually all tastes. I've shuffled and reshuffled quite a lot to achieve this list, and I suspect that it's only in a temporary state of equilibrium even so.

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Stephen King: Fairy Tale. Signed Limited UK Edition (2022)

(Very) Partial Motif index:

• Art as haunting (rather than stressing any aesthetic functions it might have):
  • Examples: the novelist in Bag of Bones (1998) / the painter in Duma Key (2008).

    Query: Is this an actual belief of King's, or simply sleight-of-hand to put us off the trail of his own addiction to his art?



• Omnipotent killers (particularly effective against unwary policemen):
  • Examples: George Stark in The Dark Half (1989) / Norman Daniels in Rose Madder (1995) / The Mercedes Killer in the Bill Hodges trilogy (2014-16).

    One can see how dramatically effective this is in context, but it's a very striking trope. King's books certainly celebrate the 'divinity that shapes our ends', but he allows rather more than equal play to its adversary.



• Parallel fantasy worlds (with a symbolic link to your own circumstances):
  • Examples: The temple of the Bull in Rose Madder (1995) / Boo'ya Moon in Lisey's Story (2006) / Eslin in Fairy Tale (2022) / Midworld in the Dark Tower series (1982-2012).

    For the most part, this is one of the richest veins in King's fiction. At times, as in Needful Things (1991), the fabular can intrude too far on his basically realistic vision. Doubling the focus enables him to avoid this.



• Recovering alcoholics (generally self-deluded but basically sympathetic):
  • Examples: Jack Torrance in The Shining (1977); Gardiner in The Tommyknockers (1987); Danny Torrance in Doctor Sleep (2013).

    This is perhaps the most avowedly autobiographical aspect of King's fiction. What larger significance it has beyond this I leave others to speculate on. I suspect, myself, that it's a bit like his obsession with reenacting his near-fatal automotive accident in his work around the turn of the millennium. 'When will you stop talking about it?" his wife is quoted as asking. 'When I can," he replied.



• A complex web of recurring characters (from other novels or stories):
  • Examples: the punk girl in Rose Madder (1995) reappears in Desperation (1996) with a quick update on events at the women's shelter devastated in the previous novel / Bag of Bones (1998) perhaps sets a record for the number of allusions to characters and locations from other books: Ralph Roberts and Joe Wyzer from Insomnia (1994), Thad Beaumont from The Dark Half (1989), Bill Denbrough from It (1986), and so on.

    This motif (of course) includes the protagonists of such formal series as the Dark Tower books or the Bill Hodges trilogy, but it goes far beyond them. I imagine it's a nod to such pioneers of the regional novel as Thomas Hardy or William Faulkner. At a certain point, your imaginary world begins to become realer than the real one to your readers as well as yourself.



• Small Town microcosms (as metaphors of larger vehicles of destruction):
  • Examples: 'Salem's Lot (1975) / Castle Rock in Needful Things (1991) / Derry in It (1986) / Under the Dome (2009).

    This he does beautifully, and with the authority of long experience. Se non è vero, è ben trovato, to (mis)quote Giordano Bruno - if it's not really true in all cases, it certainly sounds true.



• Telepathy: (definitely King's pyschic ability of choice)
  • Examples: Carrie (1974) / The Dead Zone (1979) / Firestarter (1980) / The Institute (2019).

    I guess when it comes to writing in the field of the occult and fantastic, authors have to concentrate on those aspects of it they're actually able to believe in without too much difficulty. For King, this is clearly telepathy and psychokinesis and the whole battery of Rhine-tested skills from Duke University. He manages to extend it to almost unprecedented lengths, however.

I've tried to be concise rather than comprehensive here. In the course of my reading, certain motifs have leapt out at me as particularly revealing. Another reader would make a quite different list. I'd hate anyone to conclude that I think that any King novel can be reduced to a mere assemblage of familiar motifs, however.

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Stephen King: Billy Summers (2021)

Novels:
(By Category)

[Editions owned by me are marked in bold]:

Stand-alone Novels:


1. Carrie (1974)
   • Carrie. London: New English Library, 1974.
   • Carrie. 1974. New York: Doubleday, 1974.
2. Salem's Lot (1975 / 2004)
   • Salem's Lot. 1975. London: New English Library, 1976.
   • Salem's Lot: Illustrated Edition. 1975. Photographs by Jerry N. Uelsmann. 2004. Introduction by the Author. 2005. Hodder & Stoughton. London: Hodder Headline, 2008.
3. The Shining (1977)
   • The Shining. 1977. London: New English Library, 1982.
4. The Stand (1978 / 1990)
   • The Stand. 1978. London: New English Library, 1979.
   • The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.
5. The Dead Zone (1979)
   • The Dead Zone. 1979. London: Futura, 1986.
6. Firestarter (1980)
   • Firestarter. 1980. London: Futura, 1981.
7. Cujo (1981)
   • Cujo. 1981. London: Futura, 1982.
8. Christine (1983)
   • Christine. 1983. London: New English Library, 1984.
9. Pet Sematary (1983)
   • Pet Sematary. 1983. London: New English Library, 1985.
10. Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
    • Cycle of the Werewolf. Illustrated by Berni Wrightson. 1983. London: New English Library, 1985.
11. The Eyes of the Dragon (1984)
    • The Eyes of the Dragon. Illustrated by David Palladini. 1984. London: Guild Publishing, 1987.
12. It (1986)
    • It. 1986. London: New English Library, 1987.
13. Misery (1987)
    • Misery. 1987. London: New English Library, 1988.
14. The Tommyknockers (1987)
    • The Tommyknockers. 1987. London: Guild Publishing, 1988.
15. The Dark Half (1989)
    • The Dark Half. 1989. London: New English Library, 1990.
16. Needful Things (1991)
    • Needful Things. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991.
17. Gerald's Game (1992)
    • Gerald's Game. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992.
18. Dolores Claiborne (1992)
    • Dolores Claiborne. London: BCA, 1992.
19. Insomnia (1994)
    • Insomnia. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994.
20. Rose Madder (1995)
    • Rose Madder. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995.
21. The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts (1996)
    • The Green Mile.
      • The Two Dead Girls. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • The Mouse on the Mile. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • Coffey's Hands. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • Night Journey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
      • Coffey on the Mile. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
    • The Green Mile. 6 vols. A Signet Giftpack:
      • The Two Dead Girls. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • The Mouse on the Mile. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • Coffey's Hands. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • Night Journey. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
      • Coffey on the Mile. New York: Dutton Signet, 1996.
    • The Green Mile: A Novel in Six Parts. 1996. A Plume Book. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1997.
22. Desperation (1996)
    • Desperation. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996.
23. Bag of Bones (1998)
    • Bag of Bones. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1998.
24. Storm of the Century (1999)
    • Storm of the Century. [Screenplay]. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.
25. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
    • The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999.
26. The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress (2000)
    • [The Plant: parts one-to-six of a novel in progress. Bangor, Maine: Philtrum Press, 2000.]
27. Dreamcatcher (2001)
    • Dreamcatcher. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001.
28. From a Buick 8 (2002)
    • From a Buick 8. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.
29. Cell (2006)
    • Cell. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
30. Lisey's Story (2006)
    • Lisey's Story. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
31. Duma Key (2008)
    • Duma Key. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2008.
32. Under the Dome (2009)
    • Under the Dome. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2009.
33. 11/22/63 (2011)
    • 11/22/63. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2011.
34. Doctor Sleep (2013)
    • Doctor Sleep: A Novel. [Sequel to 'The Shining', 1977]. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2013.
35. Revival (2014)
    • Revival. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014.
36. Elevation (2018)
    • Elevation. Illustrated by Mark Edward Geyer. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2018.
37. The Institute (2019)
    • The Institute. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.
38. Billy Summers (2021)
    • Billy Summers. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021.
39. Fairy Tale (2022)
    • Fairy Tale: A Novel. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022.

as Richard Bachman:


40. Rage (1977)
41. The Long Walk (1979)
42. Roadwork (1981)
43. The Running Man (1982)
    • The Bachman Books: Rage; The Long Walk; Roadwork; The Running Man. 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985. London: Guild Publishing, 1986.
    • The Bachman Books: Rage; The Long Walk; Roadwork; The Running Man. 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985. London: New English Library, 1987.
44. Thinner (1984)
    • Thinner. 1984. London: New English Library, 1986.
45. The Regulators (1996)
    • The Regulators. 1996. London: New English Library, 1997.
46. Blaze (2007)
    • Blaze. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007.

The Dark Tower:


47. The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower 1 (1982 / 2003)
    • The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower, 1. 1982. Illustrated by Michael Whelan. London: Sphere Books, 1988.
    • The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower, 1. 1982. Rev. ed. New English Library. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.
48. The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower 2 (1987)
    • The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower, 2. 1987. Illustrated by Phil Hale. London: Sphere Books, 1989.
49. The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower 3 (1991)
    • The Waste Lands. The Dark Tower, 3. Illustrated by Ned Dameron. London: Sphere Books, 1991.
50. Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower 4 (1997)
    • Wizard and Glass. The Dark Tower, 4. Illustrated by Dave McKean. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997.
51. Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower 5 (2003)
    • Wolves of the Calla. The Dark Tower, 5. Illustrated by Bernie Wrightson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.
52. Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower 6 (2004)
    • Song of Susannah. The Dark Tower, 6. Illustrated by Darrel Anderson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004.
53. The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower 7 (2004)
    • The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower, 7. Illustrated by Michael Whelan. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004.
54. The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel (2012)
    • The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel. Illustrated by Jae Lee. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2012.

Hard Case Crime:


55. The Colorado Kid (2005)
    • The Colorado Kid. A Hard Case Crime Book. New York: Dorchester Publishing Co., 2005.
56. Joyland (2013)
    • Joyland. A Hard Case Crime Book. London: Titan Books, 2013.
57. Later (2021)
    • Later. A Hard Case Crime Book. London: Titan Books, 2021.

Bill Hodges / Holly Gibney books:


58. Mr Mercedes: A Novel (2014)
    • Mr Mercedes: A Novel. Bill Hodges Trilogy, 1. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014.
59. Finders Keepers: A Novel (2015)
    • Finders Keepers: A Novel. Bill Hodges Trilogy, 2. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015.
60. End of Watch: A Novel (2016)
    • End of Watch: A Novel. Bill Hodges Trilogy, 3. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2016.
61. The Outsider: A Novel (2018)
    • The Outsider: A Novel. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2018.
62. Holly (2023)
    • Holly: A Novel. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2023.

Collaborations:


63. [with Peter Straub] The Talisman (1984)
    • The Talisman. Talisman, 1. Viking. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.
    • The Talisman. Talisman, 1. 1984. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
64. [with Peter Straub] Black House (2001)
    • Black House. Talisman, 2. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001.
65. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Button Box (2017)
    • Gwendy's Button Box. Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy, 1. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.
[Richard Chizmar: Gwendy's Magic Feather (2019)]
• 'Foreword: How Gwendy Escaped Oblivion.' In Richard Chizmar: Gwendy's Magic Feather. 2019. Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy, 2. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021.
66. [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task (2022)
    • [with Richard Chizmar] Gwendy's Final Task. Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy, 3. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022.
67. Sleeping Beauties (2017)
    • [with Owen King] Sleeping Beauties. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.

I thought it might be useful to provide this third list of King's novels sorted by categories, with details of the actual copies I've read - for fellow King-maniacs, that is, and it's hard to imagine that anyone else would have read this far in my post ...

•

Stephen King: If It Bleeds: Four Novellas (2020)

Other Works
(By Category)

[Editions owned by me are marked in bold]:

Stories & Novellas:


1. Night Shift (1978)
   • Night Shift. Introduction by John D. MacDonald. 1978. London: New English Library, 1979.
   • Night Shift. Introduction by John D. MacDonald. 1978. London: BCA, 1991.
2. Different Seasons (1982)
   • Different Seasons. 1982. London: Book Club Associates, 1983.
   • Different Seasons. 1982. London: Futura, 1984.
3. Skeleton Crew (1986)
   • Skeleton Crew. 1985. London: Futura, 1986.
4. Four Past Midnight (1990)
   • Four Past Midnight. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.
5. Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993)
   • Nightmares and Dreamscapes. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993.
6. Hearts in Atlantis (1999)
   • Hearts in Atlantis. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999.
7. Everything's Eventual (2002)
   • Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.
8. Just After Sunset (2008)
   • Just After Sunset. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2008.
9. Stephen King Goes to the Movies (2009)
   • Stephen King Goes to the Movies. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2009.
10. Full Dark, No Stars (2010)
    • Full Dark, No Stars. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010.
11. Blockade Billy / Morality (2010)
    • Blockade Billy / Morality. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010.
12. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015)
    • The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015.
13. If It Bleeds (2020)
    • If It Bleeds. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2020.
14. You Like it Darker (2024)
    • You Like it Darker. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2024.

Non-fiction:


15. Danse Macabre (1981)
    • Danse Macabre. London: Macdonald Futura Publishers, 1981.
    • Danse Macabre. 1981. New York: Berkley Books, 1984.
16. Nightmares in the Sky (1988)
    • Nightmares in the Sky: Gargoyles and Grotesques. Photographs by F-stop Fitzgerald. Viking Studio Books. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1988.
17. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
    • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000.
18. Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing (2000)
    • Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing. Introduction by Peter Straub. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 2000.
19. [with Stewart O'Nan] Faithful (2004)
    • Faithful: Two Die-Hard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. 2004. Scribner. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
20. Hearts in Suspension, ed. Jim Bishop (2016)
    • Hearts in Suspension: Essay and Novella by Stephen King; Personal Narratives by Michael Alpert, Jim Bishop, David Bright, Keith Carreiro, Harold Crosby, Sherry Dec, Bruce Holsapple, Frank Kadi, Daina McPherson, Lary Moscowitz, Jim H. Smith & Philip Thompson. Ed. Jim Bishop. Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press, 2016.

Edited:


21. [with Bev Vincent] Flight or Fright. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2018.

I've concluded with a list of King's other works - those in my possession, that is. There's an immense penumbra of ephemera: chapbooks, web publications, and special limited editions which are not precisely my bag but which constitute the main locus of interest for booktraders and the more or less specialised investors who are their principal audience.

There's also a huge amount of secondary material which I haven't (yet) started seriously collecting - though I do wonder at times if I should invest in some of the secondary works surrounding The Dark Tower, in particular [cf. my post on the comics adaptations of this work scripted by Robin Furth, author of The Dark Tower Concordance (2003-12)].

In any case, this is where I am at present, and I hope that at least some of these thoughts (and listings) may be of use to other readers.

•

George Beahm: The Stephen King Companion (1989)

Secondary

• Tim Underwood & Chuck Miller. Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King. 1988. London: New English Library, 1990.
• George Beahm, ed. The Stephen King Companion. 1989. London: Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd., 1990.
• Lisa Rogak. Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King. London: JR Books, 2009.

Lisa Rogak: Haunted Heart (2009)

•

Crazy Like a Fox

[Nicholas A. Basbanes: A Gentle Madness (1995)]

-----Original Message-----

From: David Howard
Sent: Wednesday, 16 December 2009 8:32 p.m.
To: Jack Ross
Subject: booked


Dear Jack,

I have just visited your library catalogue. Of course, I love you - and part of what I love in you is your precision. But you are certifiable.

Please offer my sympathies to Bronwyn.

David

It's hard to deny the logic of David's remarks. The whole thing seems pretty crazy to me, too, some - even most - of the time. Hence ( I suppose) my choice of title for this bibliography blog: A Gentle Madness.

Interestingly, in the 1999 paperback reissue of his fascinating account of "Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books," Nicholas Basbanes mentions that at least one of his featured collectors, a retired psychoanalyst, had expressed a certain disquiet over his choice of title: "We take madness very seriously in my line of work." [xxv].

Is it mad to collect books; and then, once you have them neatly ranged in bookcases, to catalogue them by location and category? Surely not. Professional librarians would be in a lot of trouble if one were to resort to such facile diagnoses. Like most manias, it's clearly a matter of proportion.

So:

• When you find yourself going in to debt to buy new books, even though you don't have enough space to display the existing ones, I think you could be said to have edged over from Bibliophilia to Bibliomania. It is, I have to say, a terrifyingly easy step to take.


• When you no longer read the books you buy, for fear of damaging them, or because their contents no longer interest you as much as their bindings, fonts, paperstock and other physical traits, you've ceased to be a book-lover and have become a mere collector.


• When you're forced to buy multiple copies of the same book, or even of the different impressions of a particular edition of a book, you've become a bibliographer, not a reader.

I'd like to believe that I'm still a bibliophile rather than a bibliomaniac, a reader rather than a collector, and that I acquire them for use rather than for show. You may think otherwise when you check out the online catalogue, though.

I hasten to say that it's very much a work in progress. In the geographical section, mapping the locations of the various books, 7 out of 26 bookcases, containing an estimated 6,000-odd books, remain to be catalogued - which might be seen as overshadowing the 8,562 already listed.

The 30-odd classificatory categories, too, are by no means complete. I haven't yet had time to reconcile them all with one another, and the larger pages are already starting to groan at the seams.

Why am I even bothering? Well, first of all, it's nice to take out every book and take a good look at it (discovering little treasures which one had forgotten ever getting is a lot of fun, too). Secondly, it's useful and (ultimately, I hope) timesaving to know where everything is. Thirdly, it saves one the trouble of rewriting out the bibliographical details of a book more than once, when it's being repeated in a number of different contexts.

That last one sounds a little unconvincing, I suppose, but when your book collection shadows your professional interests as closely as mine does, it really does make sense to have a complete catalogue.

Strangely enough, even though my reasons for putting this slowly-evolving print catalogue up online were purely practical - it enables me to access it wherever I happen to be working - I've found that it seems to be attracting a certain amount of interest. The blog has no fewer than five followers already, though I can't think what satisfaction they obtain from watching it slowly grow.

Maybe they just like to look at the pictures. I have to say that finding appropriate images to attach to the various entries is the only really fun part of the whole monstrous drudgery. When it's all finished, though, how I shall gloat and preen myself! Perhaps I really will run mad ...

[Charles Wysocki: Max in the Stacks]

Unpacking My Comics Library

[Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project]

In 1931, Walter Benjamin wrote an essay called "Unpacking my Library: A Talk About Book Collecting" (included in the collection Illuminations (1968)). It's been a comfort ever since to obsessive bibliophiles. He makes the activity sound almost respectable!

The conceit of the essay is that its author is unpacking the various crates that make up his library, and musing on the various treasures they contain:

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that. Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood - it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation - which these books arouse in a genuine collector.

He rejects the notion of simply listing or enumerating the books, or even just the obvious gems of his collection:

I ... have in mind something less obscure, something more palpable than that; what I am really concerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection.

Recently I myself have become aware of the need to cut down a bit, to spend less time snouting around bookshops (new or secondhand) - or around Amazon.com, for that matter - and the solution I've come up with is to expend the same energy cataloguing the books I already have.

It'll take quite a while, that much is certain. But then it's hardly worth having books if you don't know what you have, is it? The last rough census I conducted (in December 2007) left me with a grand total of 12,838 books, but I can't help feeling the number may have grown a bit since then (that was after a massive purge of more than 30 boxes of books, in any case).

Anyway, I have no intention of inflicting too much of this catalogue on you, but it did seem like a good pretext for doing a post on comics and graphic novels. I know some see them as intrinsically lowbrow and unrespectable, but I had the good fortune to grow up in a house full of Tintin and Donald Duck. Both my parents were extremely fond of comics, and while my tastes have broadened a lot since then, I'm afraid that my definition of literary genius is still as likely to be inspired by Hergé or Carl Barks as it is by John Ashbery or Angela Carter ...

So here are a few of some of my more interesting comics. I keep them in a series of plastic cubes, so you can see this as parallel to Benjamin's unpacking the 12 crates of his own library (if you want to, that is):

[Classics Illustrated]

Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor,
but because they are dissatisfied with the books
which they could buy but do not like.
- Walter Benjamin

Classics Illustrated:

• Classics Illustrated (Featuring Stories by the World’s Greatest Authors). New York: Gilberton Company, Inc. / London: Thorpe & Porter, 1946-?.
  
  
  1. No. 1: Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers.
  2. No. 2: Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe.
  3. No. 18: Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  4. No. 29: Samuel L. Clemens: The Prince and the Pauper.
  5. No. 46: Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped.
  6. No. 47: Jules Verne: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
  7. No. 63: Jules Verne: Off on a Comet.
  8. No. 78: Joan of Arc.
  9. No. 81: The Adventures of Marco Polo
  10. No. 105: Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon.
  11. No. 142: Abraham Lincoln.
  12. No. 144: H. G. Wells: The First Men in the Moon.
  13. Classics Illustrated Junior, No. 525: Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Mermaid.
  14. World Illustrated, No. 514: Story of Great Explorers.
  15. World Illustrated, No. 531: Story of the Northwest Passage.
  
  

It became a kind of a cliché at school, I remember.

"Have you read so-and-so?"

"No, but I've read the classic comic."

They were terribly drawn, hopelessly clunky in the way they ran through the plots - but somehow magical. It's hard to blame parents who saw their kids reading them for concluding that comics were intrinsically inferior to "proper" books, but they still seem to me a cut above Coles' (or Cliffs') Notes ...

In any case, there are a lot of images from the group above which are indelibly seared onto my mind's eye - from Jules Verne in particular.

[Barry Windsor-Smith: The Lurker Within]

Every passion borders on the chaotic,
but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.
- Walter Benjamin

Conan the Barbarian:

• Savage Tales, 2: “Rogues in the House.” By Roy Thomas & Barry Smith. Melbourne: Gordon & Gotch / Sydney: Colour Comics Pty, n.d.


• Savage Tales, 3: “A Sword Called Stormbringer!” By Roy Thomas & Barry Smith. Melbourne: Gordon & Gotch / Sydney: Colour Comics Pty, n.d.


• Savage Tales, 9. Melbourne: Gordon & Gotch / Waterloo: Federal Publishing Co., 1985.


• Climax Adventure Comic, 11: "Conan the Barbarian in the Coils of the Man-Serpent.” By Roy Thomas & Barry Smith. Melbourne: Gordon & Gotch / Sydney: Colour Comics Pty, n.d.


• Conan the Barbarian, 3: “The Garden of Fear.” By Roy Thomas & Barry Smith. Melbourne: Gordon & Gotch / Sydney: Colour Comics Pty, n.d.


• Conan the Barbarian, 7: “The Monster of the Monoliths.” By Roy Thomas & Barry Smith. Melbourne: Gordon & Gotch / Sydney: Colour Comics Pty, 1970.


• Conan the Barbarian, 254: “Hyperborean Horror.” By Roy Thomas & Mike Docherty. New York: Marvel Comics, March 1992.


• Conan the Barbarian, 255: “Priests of the Purple Plague.” By Roy Thomas & Mike Docherty. New York: Marvel Comics, April 1992.


• Conan the Barbarian, 260: “The Second Coming of Shuma-Gorath.” By Roy Thomas & Mike Docherty. New York: Marvel Comics, September 1992.


• Conan the King, 35: “The Ravaged Land.” By Don Kraar & Judith Hunt. New York: Marvel Comics, July 1986.

These sword-&-sorcery epics exerted even more of a fascination on me, I recall. Best of all was the comic where Conan met Michael Moorcock's hero Elric and his terrible soul-eating sword Doombringer (the second in the list above). Barry Smith's drawings were elegant and precise, though few of his successors could emulate him in this. The Roy Thomas scripts managed to convey a good deal of the mad intensity of Robert E. Howard's Nietzschean original ... I remember writing a poem about it once, in fact: "Memories of Conan the Cimmerian":

Death which would have skewered the barbarian
like unto a worm …
if not for his steel-spring quickness!
– Roy Thomas / Barry Smith, “Rogues in the House”

Across the dark lands, the dark republic
of dreams, coming for you, running, running

RAY WHITE REAL ESTATE

on eager feet, tamped dry-earth roads,
irresistible, sure-footed, in the dark

SKITTLES SONS

with death in hand, with weapons,
weapons at the ready, keen, blood-thirsty

HOLIDAY SHOPPE

He comes, he comes, Brüder

the girl in the denim skirt

laughs at a fat man’s joke

as dawn arises, he is on the scent

[First published in Tongue in Your Ear 7 (2003): {19}]

[Carl Barks: A Christmas for Shacktown]

the chance, the fate, that suffuse the past before my eyes
are conspicuously present in the accustomed confusion of these books.
- Walter Benjamin

Walt Disney:

• The Carl Barks Library of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. Ed. Bruce Hamilton, with Geoffrey Blum and Thomas Andrae. 30 vols in 10 Boxed Sets. Scottsdale, Arizona: Another Rainbow Publishing Inc., 1983-89.
  
  
  1. 1942-1949: Donald Duck Four Color 9-223 (1984)
  2. 1949-1971: Donald Duck Four Color 238-422, 26-138 (1986)
  3. 1952-1958: Uncle Scrooge 1-20 (1984)
  4. 1958-1963: Uncle Scrooge 21-43 (1985)
  5. 1963-1967: Uncle Scrooge 44-71 (1989)
  6. 1945-1974: Giveaways, Annuals, Miscellaneous (1983)
  7. 1943-1948: Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories 31-94 (1988)
  8. 1948-1954: Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories 95-166 (1983)
  9. 1954-1959: Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories 167-229 (1985)
  10. 1959-1969, 1974: Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories 230-405 (1983)
  
  
  
  
• Barks, Carl. Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Adventures, 3: “Lost in the Andes.” 1949. Prescott, Arizona: Gladstone Publishing, Ltd., Feb 1988.


• Barks, Carl. Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Adventures, 14: “Donald Duck and the Mummy’s Ring.” 1943. Prescott, Arizona: Gladstone Publishing, Ltd., August 1989.


• Disney, Walt. Walt Disney’s Donald Duck, 262: “Donald’s Cousin Gus." 1938. Prescott, Arizona: Gladstone Publishing, Ltd, March 1988.


• Disney, Walt. Zio Paperone, No. 10. Milano: Mondadori, Agosto 1988.

Well, these are genuine masterpieces, I have to say.

I won't claim that Carl Barks had much of an opinion of human nature, but he taught the basic principles of society and its rules through the protean figures of Donald Duck, his know-it-all nephews, and his uncle, the tycoon Scrooge McDuck.

I can't agree (pace Ariel Dorfman) that the latter is simply an embodiment of Yankee imperialism. As you can see from the extract above, the bitter black humour of the narratives masked an intense knowledge of and sympathy for the sufferings of the poor. Barks wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He never forgot the fact, either.

His body of work is as massive and complex as Balzac's.

[Bryan Talbot: Alice in Sunderland]

"The only exact knowledge there is," said Anatole France,
"is the knowledge of the date of publication and the format of books."
- Walter Benjamin

Graphic Novels (miscellaneous):

• Crimmins, G. Garfield. The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.


• Dille, Robert C. The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. 1969. USA [Chicago:] Chelsea House Publishers, 1970.


• Horrocks, Dylan. Hicksville: A Comic Book. 1998. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2001.


• Jane at War: The original and unexpurgated adventures of the British Secret Weapon of World War Two. 1939-45. Illustrated by Norman Pett. London: Wolfe Publishing, 1976.


• Reynolds, Chris. Mauretania. London: Penguin Books, 1990.


• Smith, Jeff. Bone. 1991-2004. Columbus, Ohio: Cartoon Books, 2004.


• Talbot, Bryan. Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007.

Here's a group of very disparate works, each brilliant in its own way: Dylan Horrocks' homegrown epos Hicksville remains as relevant today as when it first started to come out in Pickle in the 80s and 90s; Bone is a picaresque and amusing tale, on a pretty large scale. Alice in Sunderland is probably the one which delights me most at present, though. It's hard to characterise, a sort of genre-bending history book and revisionist biography: a labour of love in the truest sense of the word ...

[George Herrimann: Krazy Kat]

if there is a counterpart to the confusion of a library,
it is the order of its catalogue.
- Walter Benjamin

Krazy Kat:

• Herriman, George. Krazy & Ignatz: The Komplete Kat Komics. Volume 1: 1916. Forestville, California: Eclipse Books / Turtle Island Foundation, 1988.


• Herriman, George. A Katnip Kantata in the Key of K: The Komplete Kat Komics. Volume 7: 1922. Forestville, California: Eclipse Books / Turtle Island Foundation, 1991.


• Herriman, George. Inna Yott on the Muddy Geranium: The Komplete Kat Komics. Volume 8: 1923. Forestville, California: Eclipse Books / Turtle Island Foundation, 1991.

If you haven't met Krazy Kat you really should do so at once. About the only thing I ever heard to William Randolph Hearst's credit is that he insisted on having the strip run in all his newspapers, and came down hard on any that dared to drop it.

Most of them did try to drop it, at least once. It was, after all, the closest thing to Dada that the comic strip has ever attempted. A kind of mad linguistic fantasy more along the lines of Finnegans Wake than Huckleberry Finn.

Not that the concept is complex - just the number of variations that can be played on the basic love triangle of Krazy, Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp.

[Jack Kirby: New Gods]

Collectors are people with a tactical instinct; their experience teaches them that when they capture a strange city, the smallest antique shop can be a fortress, the most remote stationery store a key position.
- Walter Benjamin

Jack Kirby:

• New Gods. Issues, 1-11: 1971-72. New York: DC Comics, 1998.

Late Kirby worries me a bit, I must admit. After reinventing the aesthetics of the action comic with his work on the Fantastic Four and Hulk in the early 60s, he eventually parted ways with Marvel's Stan Lee in the 70s - and was never quite the same man again.

There are flashes of genius here, but also a kind of static anti-narrative grandiosity which lacks the lightness and balance of his earlier work. I suspect that dyed-in-the-wool Kirby fans will take great umbrage at this put-down of any of the master's work, though ...

[Los Bros Hernandez: Love and Rockets Sketchbook]

How many cities have revealed themselves to me
in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
- Walter Benjamin

Love & Rockets:

• Hernandez, Jaime. Locas: The Maggie and Hopey Stories. A Love and Rockets Book. Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2004.

Oh God, who can resist Love and Rockets? My own preference has always been for Jaime's "Locas": Maggie and Hopey, over the complex interrelationships of Gilberto's imaginary Central American village Palomar, but it's strictly a choice of excellences.

The Hernandez brothers have to take their place in any pantheon of the greatest comics heroes. And it's nice to have their strongest work collected in these (massive) omnibus volumes.

[Frank Miller: Sin City]

the most distinguished trait of a collection
will always be its transmissibility.
- Walter Benjamin

Frank Miller:

• Miller, Frank. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Introduction by Alan Moore. New York: DC Comics, 1986.


• Miller, Frank. Elektra: Assassin. 1986-87. New York: Epic Comics, 1987.


• Miller, Frank. Sin City. 1992. London: Titan Books, 1993.

Well, here's a man who needs no introduction. When I first read Elektra Assassin back in the 80s, I could see that this was something altogether exceptional. Funnily enough, it took me longer to get to The Dark Knight Returns, one of the "big three" graphic novels of 1987, the ones which finally persuaded virtually everyone who didn't have their heads terminally up their arses that here was a form which had finally come of age (the other two, if you're curious, were Alan Moore's Watchmen and the first volume of Art Spiegelman's Maus).

It took me longer to "get" Sin City. Now, post the film, I can see it for the masterpiece it is, but at the time it seemed to me to lack the complexity and layers of his earlier work.

Boy, was I wrong!

[Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie: The Lost Girls]

the phenomenon of collecting loses its meaning
as it loses its personal owner.
- Walter Benjamin

Alan Moore:

• V for Vendetta. Illustrated by David Lloyd. New York: DC Comics, 1990.


• Saga of the Swamp Thing. Issues 21-64: 1983-87. Vols 1-6. New York: Vertigo, 1987-2003.


• DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore. New York : DC Comics, 2006.


• Watchmen. Illustrated by Dave Gibbons. New York: DC Comics, 1987.


• From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts. Illustrated by Eddie Campbell. 1999. Sydney: Bantam Books, 2001.


• A Disease of Language. Illustrated by Eddie Campbell. 1999 & 2001. London: Knockabout – Palmano Bennett, 2005.


• America’s Best Comics. No. 1. (2000)


• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. Vols 1-2. La Jolla, CA: America’s Best Comics, 2000-2003.


• Lost Girls. Illustrated by Melinda Gebbie. 3 vols. Atlanta-Portland: Top Shelf Productions, 2006.

Moores has suffered from a series of terrible film adaptations of his major works, but anyone familiar with the comics which gave rise to them could see at once the intensely innovative and nervous brilliance which informs his best work.

V for Vendetta wasn't so ill-served as the earlier, completely-rewritten From Hell or (shudder) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It's taken till now, though, with the sheer punch of Zack Snyder's new adaptation of Watchmen for non-comics fans to understand something of Moore's sheer narrative power.

They dont' call him a genius for nothing. Though he's a terrifyingly uneven one.

[Harvey Pekar: American Splendor]

Even though public collections may be less objectionable socially
and more useful academically than private collections,
the objects get their due only in the latter.
- Walter Benjamin

Harvey Pekar:

• From off the Streets of Cleveland Comes … American Splendour: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar & From off the Streets of Cleveland Comes … More American Splendour: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar. 1986 & 1987. Introduction by R. Crumb. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.


• The New American Splendour Anthology. New York / London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991.


• Pekar, Harvey, & Joyce Brabner. Our Cancer Year. Art by Frank Stack. New York / London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994.

Once again, a film tie-in that helped to publicise a genuinely worthwhile and original comics talent. Harvey Pekar's American Splendor of course drew initially on some of the counterculture clout of R. Crumb and his other friends, but his naturalist vision is quite distinct. I'm not sure it would be praising him to compare him to Frank Norris or Theodore Dreiser. In many ways he's a better writer than either, but their projects seem in many ways related.

[Art Spiegelman: Maus]

O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure!
- Walter Benjamin

Raw:

• Adelman, Bob. Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America’s Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s. Introduction by Art Spiegelman; Commentary by Richard Merkin, Essay by Madeline Kripke. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.


• Spiegelman, Art, & Françoise Mouly, ed. Raw. Vol. 2, no. 2. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.


• Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, I: My Father Bleeds History. 1986. London: Penguin, 1987.


• Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, II: And Here My Troubles Began. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.


• Spiegelman, Art. In the Shadow of No Towers. London: Penguin Viking, 2004.

He's tailed off a bit, but there's still no getting past Maus. As Oscar Wilde once put it, "There are two ways of disliking my plays - one is to dislike them. The other is to prefer The Importance of Being Earnest."

There are two ways of putting down comics now. One is to put them down. The other is to extol the merits of Maus and only Maus.

Raw is still worth a read after all these years. What a cool idea for a magazine! Each issue is a little work of art. I wish that Spiegelman would allow himself to make more mistakes now, though. Oh, for the fecundity of an Alan Moore! Fall flat on your face - we don't care. Only publish some real comics again ...

[Sacco in Bosnia]

as Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight.
Only in extinction is the collector comprehended.
- Walter Benjamin

Joe Sacco:

• Palestine. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.


• Safe Area Goražde. 2000. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2005.


• Notes of a Defeatist. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.

Joe Sacco is kind of a god to me. I like him even more than Harvey Pekar (if that's possible). To call him influential would be to imply that there's anyone capable of following his lead, but, really, isn't this a great way for comics to be going?

Investigative journalist / War Correspondent in some of the most troubled corners of the globe - and he does it with a sensitivity and balance, a lack of self-aggrandizing grandiosity, which would do credit to a latter-day Ernie Pyle or Stephen Crane ...

[Neil Gaiman's Death]

ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects.
Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.
- Walter Benjamin

Vertigo:

• Carey, Mike. Lucifer. Issues 1-75: 1999-2006. Vols 1-11. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2001-7.


• Carlton, Bronwyn. The Books of Faerie. 1993-99. Vols 1-2. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1998 & 2007.
• 
  
• Gaiman, Neil. The Sandman Library. Issues 1-75: 1988-96. Vols 1-10. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1995-97.


• Gaiman, Neil & Yoshitaka Amano. The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999.


• Gaiman, Neil. The Sandman: Endless Nights. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2003.


• Gaiman, Neil. Midnight Days. 1989-95. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999.


• Gaiman, Neil. The Last Temptation. 1994-95. Oregon: Dark Horse Comics, 2000.


• Gaiman, Neil. The Books of Magic. 1990-91; 1993. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2001.


• Rieber, John Ney. The Books of Magic. Issues 1-50: 1994-98. Vols 1-7. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1995-2001.


• Horrocks, Dylan, & Richard Case. The Names of Magic. 2001. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2002.


• Willingham, Bill. Fables: Legends in Exile. Issues 1-51: 2002-6. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2002-2006.


• Willingham, Bill. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2006.

"I loved Enitharmon, and I was not ashamed." (W. Blake). I loved Sandman, and, yeah, maybe I was a little ashamed at first, and maybe they don't seem quite as cool now as they did when I first read them, but there are certainly parts of Neil Gaiman's huge, motley edifice which remain as enchanting as ever.

What's more, Sandman has given rise (directly or indirectly) to a whole slew of sequels and spin-offs. Tim Hunter and the Books of Magic is basically okay, I think, though it tailed off sharply towards the end of John Ney Rieber's run. Fables, similarly, hasn't really lived up to a very strong start, I feel.

But Mike Carey's Lucifer is a masterpiece. Better even than Sandman (though dependent on it in various ways). Here's where you should start if you want to know what a serious writer can achieve through the pages of a mere "fantasy comic." It's no accident that I own the whole run of volumes.

[Chris Ware: Jimmy Corrigan]

I have erected one of his dwellings, with books as the building stones, before you, and now he is going to disappear inside, as is only fitting.
- Walter Benjamin

Chris Ware:

• Quimby the Mouse: Collected Works. 1990-1997. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.


• Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid in the World. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.

This guy is seriously weird. Brilliant, yes, but self-loathing on a level I've seldom encountered outside the pages of Kafka or Beckett. He may be up with them for sheer originality, though. You need good eyes to make out his mad, minuscule, packed pages.

[Scott McCloud: Reinventing Comics (2000)]

Of no one has less been expected, and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than the man who has been able to carry on his disreputable existence in the mask of Spitzweg's "Bookworm."
- Walter Benjamin

Secondary Literature:

• Bender, Hy. The Sandman Companion. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999.


• Chin, Mike. Writing and Illustrating the Graphic Novel: Everything You Need to Know to Create Great Graphic Works. London: New Burlington Books, 2004.


• Cotta Vaz, Mark. Tales of the Dark Knight: Batman’s First Fifty Years, 1939-1989. London: Futura, 1989.


• Estren, Mark James. A History of Underground Comics. 1974. Berkeley, CA: Ronin, 1993.


• Geissman, Grant. Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics! New York: Harper Design, 2005.


• Irvine, Alex. The Vertigo Encyclopedia. Foreword by Neil Gaiman. Introduction by Karen Berger. London: Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2008.


• Mackie, Howard, ed. The Very Best of Marvel Comics. New York: Marvel Comics, 1991.


• McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art. 1993. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.


• McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology are Revolutionising an Art Form. New York: Perennial, 2000.


• McCloud, Scott. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.


• Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, Mass: Da Capo Press, 2007.

I suppose the one of these you really need to own (or at the very least read) is Scott McCloud's classic Understanding Comics. Its two sequels supplement it in various ways, but the original work remains the single most cogent and persuasive plea for the possibilities of the medium that I've ever come across.

Actually that's understating it. No matter what medium of communication you're interested in, you owe it to yourself to read McCloud. His book is as thought-provoking as Erich Auerbach's Mimesis or John Livingstone Lowe's Road to Xanadu.

The Douglas Wolk book is good for its coverage of more recent work in the field, but it isn't a patch on McCloud's extraordinary work.

Oh, and did I mention, I haven't even started talking about foreign-language comics yet: all those manga and Bandes Dessinées ...

[Carl Spitzweg: The Bookworm (1850)]