Stephen King "Danse Macabre" Slipcased Signed Limited Edition, First Edition No. 42 of 250

Danse Macabre was the 1982 Hugo Award winner for Best Related Non-Fiction Book.

A Rare Book For The Avid Stephen King Collector

New York. Everest House Publishers 1981. Stephen King "Danse Macabre". Signed by Stephen King directly onto the limitation page. Signed Limited First Edition of only 250 signed and numbered copies. This is number 42. Cloth bound. "First Edition" as stated on the copyright page. 400 pages. P

Includes the original publisher issued slipcase and "glassine" dust-jacket paper, now protected in a new Mylar archival acid-free mylar sleeve.

A handsome signed collector's edition to display in your Stephen King library. Very few collectors have the opportunity to own this one.

The limitation page reads:

Danse Macabre

Danse Macabre is a 1981 non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, TV, radio, film and comics, and the influence of contemporary societal fears and anxieties on the genre. When the book was republished King included a new Forenote dated June 1983 (however not all subsequent editions have included this forenote). And when the book was republished on February 23, 2010, it included an additional new forenote in the form of a longer essay (7,700 words) entitled "What's Scary".

Danse Macabre examines the various influences on King's own writing, and important genre texts of the 19th and 20th centuries. Danse Macabre explores the history of the genre as far back as the Victorian era, but primarily focuses on the 1950s to the 1970s (roughly the era covering King's own life at the time of publication). King peppers his book with informal academic insight, discussing archetypes, important authors, common narrative devices, "the psychology of terror", and his key theory of "Dionysian horror".

King's novel The Stand was published in Spanish as La danza de la muerte 'The Dance of Death', which caused some confusion between the two books. (A later Spanish edition of this novel was titled Apocalipsis 'Apocalypse'.) The same happened in Brazil and Portugal with both countries translating The Stand as "A Dança da Morte", meaning also "The Dance of Death". Similarly, his 1978 collection of short stories Night Shift was released in France as Danse macabre in 1980. To avoid confusion, the actual "Danse Macabre" essay was given the title "Anatomie de l'horreur" ("An Anatomy of Horror") when it was released in France 14 years later, in 1995.

Before he gave us the “one of a kind classic” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir On Writing, Stephen King wrote a nonfiction masterpiece in Danse Macabre, “one of the best books on American popular culture” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

From the author of dozens of #1 New York Times bestsellers and the creator of many unforgettable movies comes a vivid, intelligent, and nostalgic journey through three decades of horror as experienced through the eyes of the most popular writer in the genre. In 1981, years before he sat down to tackle On Writing, Stephen King decided to address the topic of what makes horror horrifying and what makes terror terrifying. Here, in ten brilliantly written chapters, King delivers one colorful observation after another about the great stories, books, and films that comprise the horror genre—from Frankenstein and Dracula to The Exorcist, The Twilight Zone, and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.

With the insight and good humor his fans appreciated in On Writing, Danse Macabre is an enjoyably entertaining tour through Stephen King’s beloved world of horror.

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, MR MERCEDES, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both MR MERCEDES and END OF WATCH received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King, and many of King's books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including The Shawshank Redemption, Gerald's Game and It.

King was the recipient of America's prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine.