by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)
Book Club Edition | New American Library | 1985
Many authors write under pen names, for various reasons, but none may be as famously known as Richard Bachman–the king of horror himself, Stephen King.
Though he’d been writing professionally since 1967, King’s big break came with the publication of his first novel, Carrie, in 1974. It’s important to note the original hardcover edition of Carrie sold alright, but it was the paperback version, published in 1975, that eventually became the bestseller–with sales bolstered by the film adaptation in 1976.
The success of Carrie established King as a new voice in horror fiction and allowed him to become a full time author. With nothing to impede him, King began to write prolifically, writing the drafts for his next two novels–Salem’s Lot and The Shining–within six months.
Afraid to oversaturate the market with a single author, publishing houses only released one novel of an author’s per year. King, however, was already writing at a breakneck speed and curious if his success was due to skill or luck, decided to publish his fourth novel, Rage, under a pseudonym.
The first four Bachman novels were originally released in paperback and with little fanfare, but over time fans quickly noticed many similarities between the authors’ writing. Some even accused Bachman of copying King’s style. It wasn’t until the release of Thinner (1984), the first hardcover Bachman novel, that the secret was revealed.
Stephen P. Brown, a bookstore clerk and horror fiction aficionado, received an advanced reading copy of the novel and, noting the similarities in the style of both authors, became convinced they were one and the same man. In a real-time act of bibliography, he tracked down copyright documentation that proved King was Bachman. And so, on February 9, 1985, Richard Bachman died suddenly of “cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia.”
After the loss of Bachman’s anonymity, Thinner sales skyrocketed. In order to introduce King’s existing fanbase to his work under his penname, the first four Bachman books, Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), and The Running Man (1982), were collected into a hardcover edition along with an introduction by King called, “Why I Was Bachman.”
And Bachman King remains, even to this day, as two more books have since been published under the penname–The Regulators (1996) and Blaze (2007). Affectionately called “trunk books” they claim to be found by the Bachman widow, Claudia, in a trunk or by King himself, in an attic among papers pre-dating Carrie.
And so the story of Richard Bachman, worthy of its own twisting Stephen King novel, continues on, even after death.