Finding Stephen’s Writings

Dear Stephen King,

For years I have followed your work. At one time I had a pretty impressive collection of your books. I had all the hardbacks, most of the anthologies and many of the old magazines that I could find on ebay. When I got married, I had to give up a lot of my collections, and My books shelf was one of them. I am not entirely sure I am over that sale. I did make the guy happy I sold the books to.

I have made it a challenge to find every piece of writing you have allowed into the open market. I started by looking at the complete list of written works on your website. It is a great list. It helps me find the stories that are not in my collection.

The next part of my search are the few works that were available before you sold “Carrie”. In “On Writing” you described a series of newsletters you and your brother Dave wrote called “Dave’s Rag” That led me to a story called, “I was a Teenage Grave Robber” which was published in Comics Review in 1967. This story led me to Horrorking.com and their list of Rare Works by Stephen King. This was the motherload. I was so excited about finding this.

I soon discovered an anthology you and your childhood friend Chris Chelsey wrote together. It contained 18 single page stories, of which you wrote 8 and 1 you co-authored with Chelsey. I have found synopsis of several of these stories, but I have not been able to find the stories themselves.

After a little more research, it turns out there are a number of books about rare works you have either not released or have not been republished in an anthology. "The Lost Works of Stephen King", by Steve Spignesi and "Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished" by Rocky Wood with David Rawsthorne & Norma Blackburn are two of those books. The first I can get pretty easily. The second I might have to settle for the kindle version. It is out of print and the copies available are $50-200. I look forward to the hunt though?

Thanks for the rare stories
Robert T Gasperson

PS. Do you enjoy hiding stories or leaving easter eggs inside stories for your true fans to hunt for?