“In my opinion, King is possibly the most talented gothic writers alive. ” My mother said to me one night while she was telling me about a book she had read at the dinner table . As soon as the family dismissed for the table and I went to my room I found that for some reason what she said about Stephen King, the renowned gothic author, had been trapped in my mind, somehow nipping at the back of brain. Once I let myself into the world of Stephen King there was no return. After reading a few of his books, “The Stand” and “Pet Cemetary” to be exact, I was not satisfied. I wanted to learn more, I wanted to know about the man behind he books.
I realized that the only I would be able to satisfy myself was to look into the life and background of this so-called “Master of Horror Literature. ” I will try to summarize to you what I learned. Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 at the Maine General Hospital in Portland Maine. He was born to the family of Donald Edwin King and Ruth Pillsbury King. Stephen had a brother that was older than him who been adopted named David. Life for King took a turn for the worse when his father went one night to get ciggarettes and never returned. At this point Ruth took over the household getting support from relatives.
Due to ruff times Stephen was forced to move around constantly and traveled throught out many states. King was no book worm either. Besides reading his father’s collection of fantasy novels and writting for a few short stories to magazines, he was also in a band and played on the high school football team. King started his career when he was extremely young. At the age of twelve he had already started to shown signs that he was to be a great writer. He and his brother David descided to publish there own local newspaper for there small town named “Dave’s Rag. ” Using a mimeogram that David bought, they sold “Dave’s Rag” at 5 cents an issue.
Later in high school King, in collaboration with his dear friend Chris Chesley composed a book with 18 short stories named “People, Places and Things-Volume One. ” A few of the stories written by King were “The Bottom of The Well”, “The Deminsion Warp” and “I’m Falling. ” But what was the insperation for young King? Well perhaps it had something to due with the fact that King was somewhat of a connasair on 50’s classic horror flicks. King recieved a scholarship from the University of Miane. King claims “my high school career was totally undistinguished. I was not at the top of my class, nor at the bottom. “