"HER WHOLE LIFE HAD BEEN A LONG AND EASY DREAM TO LULL HER HELPLESSLY INTO THIS WAKING NIGHTMARE": FIRST EDITION OF THE SHINING, INSCRIBED BY STEPHEN KING

KING, Stephen. The Shining. Garden City: Doubleday, 1977. Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $7800.

First edition of King's third novel, a "masterwork, a bold product of an original vision," inscribed "For Marvin, Best, Stephen King."

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). Made into the 1980 movie directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicolson and Shelley Duvall; it was later made into a 1997 TV mini-series starring Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay and 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 with pinpoint foxing to inscription page, price-clipped dust jacket with a few faint stains, tiny closed tears to foot of spine. A near-fine copy. Desirable inscribed.