| Language | English |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 978-0-451-21084-5 |
| No of pages | 300 |
| Font Size | Medium |
| Book Publisher | Penguin Books |
About Author
Stephen Edwin King was born the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his father left them when Stephen was two, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut.
When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of them.
Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.
Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS.
He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional.
He graduated in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.
He met Tabitha Spruce in the stacks of the Folger Library at the University, where they both worked as students; they married in January of 1971.
As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.
Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many were gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.
In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching English at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.
Related Books
The Gunslinger, the first book in the Dark Tower series, introduces Roland of Gilead, a lone gunslinger who’s on a quest to reach the Dark Tower. The story is set in a parallel universe that is very much like the Old Wild West. Roland follows the mysterious ‘Man in Black’ across incredible landscapes, surmounting astonishing obstacles. He believes that the ‘Man in Black’ knows all the secrets of the Dark Tower that he seeks. He meets a host of characters along the way.
One of them is Jake Chambers, who joins Roland on his pursuit of the ‘Man in Black’. A novel that was 12 years in the making, The Gunslinger was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem, Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came. This particular edition of the book is a revised version of the original that was released in 1982. The newer version takes care of gaps and inconsistent references in the series. The first instalment of what Stephen King considers his magnum opus, The Gunslinger is considered a must-read for fantasy lovers.