King, Stephen (1977) ‘The Shining’, US signed first edition

Stephen King (1977) ‘The Shining’, US first edition, first printing, published by Doubleday. Signed and inscribed by King on the ffep: “For Paul – with all good wishes – Stephen King, October 14, 1978”. All first issue points present: ‘First Edition’ on the copyright page; the ‘R49’ gutter code on page 447 as called for. Dust jacket correctly priced at USD 8.95. One of only 25,000 copies printed which was less that King’s debut ‘Carrie’.

Condition: near fine in near fine dust jacket. No previous owners’ scribbles, no bookplates, no stamps. Clean throughout. Visibly unread copy, still taut and unopened pages. Boards clean, not bumped, no foxing, no remainder spray. Spine lettering vibrant and not rubbed out. Tiny amount of rubbing to tips of the thin and fragile black cloth. The dust jacket is NOT faded on the spine. There is a very small scratch on the spine and a vertical smudge on the rear flap. Otherwise a nice specimen, not price clipped.

‘The Shining’ was adapted by Stanly Kubrick for cinema and is regarded as the best horror film of all time even though King himslef does not approve of the visul translation, so he produced his own TV rendition more recently. If one had to choose one book for which Stephen King will be remembered it would probably be ‘The Shining’, not least because of Kubrick’s seminal adaptation, but also because young King worked some of his personal experiences into the book: writer’s block, recovery from alcoholism, and stay at the ‘Overlook Hotel’ (The Stanley Hotel) in the Rockies with his family.