All posts by Vincent Neyt

The First German Edition of IT Was a Translation of King’s First Draft

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It is a truth universally acknowledged by Stephen King collectors that the US/UK trade editions were not the “World First Edition” of IT (publication date: 15 September 1986), that honor went to the famous German “Bootleg” limited edition of ES by Edition Phantasia which was shipped out in May 1986. On the last page of IT, King wrote the date on which he finished the novel, 28 December 1985. You might ask yourself: how can anyone translate a 1000+ page novel into another language in just two or three months? The answer is simple: you can’t—not even with German efficiency. The fact is that the German translation that was published that May was a translation of the first draft of IT, instead of King’s third and final draft, which he finished in late December 1985—a text which underwent even more changes during the editing and proofing process at Viking in the first months of 1986.

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Guest Lecture at the University of Oxford

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On 31 October Vincent will give a guest lecture about the project at the English department of the University of Oxford:

Stephen King’s IT From First Draft to First Edition: A Look at the Many Documents Produced Along the Way

Stephen King’s horror epic IT was originally published in the USA in September 1986 as a beautiful hardback trade edition with artwork by Bob Giusti gracing the cover. Six years earlier, King “cranked up some rock ‘n’ roll” in his office, rolled a sheet of blue paper into his IBM Selectric typewriter, and wrote the novel’s opening sentence. In my lecture I will describe “how IT happened” during those six years. I will focus primarily on the many documents that were produced along the way in both the writing and the publication process: original typescript and manuscript pages, photocopies for proofreaders, correspondence, floppy disks, printouts, in-house publisher’s photocopies, photocopies for the sale of rights, unbound and bound page proofs, printer’s galleys, preliminary concept sketches for the artwork, point-of-sale promotional items, review copies, and so on. Most of these items are in King’s archive and in private collections, some, unfortunately, are unaccounted for and may be lost, or in a dark attic somewhere.

More info at: https://octet.web.ox.ac.uk/event/stephen-kings-it-first-draft-first-edition-look-many-documents-produced-along-way

Pennywise's First Public Appearance

Pennywise’s First Public Appearance was in 1980

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The first ever public appearance of Pennywise the Dancing Clown was on the evening of the eleventh of November, 1980, six years before the publication of IT. David Morrell, the author of First Blood (1972) and professor of American Literature at the University of Iowa (UI) at the time, had invited King to speak and read at the Macbride Auditorium in Iowa City.​*​

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A Collector’s Guide to Stephen King Manuscripts, Galleys, Proofs and ARCs

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This two-part video offers a (brief) collector’s guide to Stephen King manuscripts, galleys, proofs and ARCs. They can take many forms: from an original “idea notebook” handwritten by King, to a review copy that is identical to the first edition book except for a publisher’s sticker or stamp and the letter from the editor that came with it.

In this video I hope to introduce the many types of documents produced during the writing and publication process of the work of a best-selling author, that inevitably sometimes make their way onto the collector’s market. The first part deals with manuscripts.

Part two of the guide is about the sometimes confusing world of proofs, galleys and ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) and takes IT as a running example.