Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition (12 page)

¹⁶
Personal correspondence with Rocky Wood, 24 June 2008 

¹⁷
Stephen King: The Art of Darkness
, Douglas E. Winter, p.76 

¹⁸
The Unseen King
, Tyson Blue, p.76 

¹⁹
Danse Macabre
, section 16 of ‘The Last Waltz – Horror and Morality, Horror and Magic’ 

²⁰
The Lost Work of Stephen King
, Stephen J. Spignesi, p.200-201 

²¹
Stephen King: The Art of Darkness,
Douglas E. Winter, p.19 

²²
Ethelyn Flaws, husband of Oren (both are referred to in
Song of Susannah
), sister of Ruth Pillsbury King 

²³
The Stephen King Story
, George Beahm, p.26 

²⁴
A pastiche is defined as, “A dramatic, literary, or musical piece openly imitating the previous works of other artists, often with satirical intent” (
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
)
 

²⁵
Stephen King Collectibles: An Illustrated Price Guide
, George Beahm, p. 17 

²⁶
Stephen King: The Art of Darkness
, Douglas E. Winter, p.17 

²⁷
Part of an online only article,
Stephen King on His 10 Longest Novels
by Gilbert Cruz, published 9 November 2009. The printed article included slightly edited material from a telephone interview with King. 

²⁸
Associated Press article by Phil Thomas, published in a number of newspapers, including as
His Imagination Can Scare Anyone
in
Register-Guard
(Eugene, Oregon) for 5 April 1979. 

²⁹
Stephen King: The Art of Darkness
, Douglas E. Winter, p.166 

Variations and Versions in King’s Fiction
 

There has been little discussion over the years of King’s penchant for revising his fiction and this is quite surprising. The fact there are almost as many King works of fiction that have been revised for re-publication as those that have not should have lead to further discussion and interest than has been accorded. 

Most authors publish a story once and that first (and only) version becomes the standard form of the work no matter how often it is reprinted or wherever it is republished. 

In this matter King, as is often the case, is different. It is possible that no King work is ever truly “finished.” He often publishes a short story in a magazine and later reworks it for publication in one of his collections, such as
Night Shift
or even to include as parts of a novel. 

These revisions range from relatively minor wording changes (for example,
Battleground
) to more significant rewrites (
Children of the Corn
), to total rewrites which will often include major character name changes and the transfer of a story-line to entire new towns or timelines (
It Grows on You
or
Nona
). Even novel-length works such as
Eyes of the Dragon
have been revised.  

If a collector were to obtain each publication of every story it would be necessary to benchmark it against other publications. The next problem is determining whether changes are simply “Variations” (minor updates) or represent a whole new “Version” of the story. 

The rule of thumb used for this publication is that where a work has been published and a later publication includes relatively minor variations (small text changes, no significant changes in Characters or Plot), these are classified as a “Variation”. In those cases there is only one substantive “Version” of that work. However, where the later publication includes relatively significant changes in Plot, Character, Location and so on, or a very significant rewrite of the text, that later work is a new “Version” of the tale.  

Novels 

To date, King has revised four novels; allowed “deleted scenes” to be published from one; marginally revised material for another; and added a fictional
Foreword
to certain editions of yet another. 

An entirely fictional
Foreword to Paperback Edition
appears in certain Signet (US) mass market paperback editions of
Dolores Claiborne
, the first of which appeared in December 1993, the same year as the first edition hardback was published. It is noteworthy that this addition has never appeared in a UK-rights paperback. 

King’s own imprint, Philtrum Press first published
Eyes of the Dragon
in 1984, in a Limited Edition of 1250. The mass-market edition, published in 1987, contains important differences in the text, including character changes. An entire chapter from the Limited was not included in the mass-market edition. The original title of the manuscript was
The Napkins
, which refers to Peter’s method of escape. King first wrote the story for his daughter, Naomi and relates this motivation in a short non-fiction piece,
Why I Wrote the Eyes of the Dragon
, which appeared in the
Castle Rock
newsletter for February 1987. The differences between the two publications clearly show that they are quite separate versions of the same tale. 

The Green Mile
is one of the best loved of King’s tales, by both readers and moviegoers in general. This is partly due to it being one of the best screen adaptations of a King story and
that
is almost entirely down to Frank Darabont, who wrote the screenplay and directed.
The Green Mile
was King’s first complete serialized novel. Published each month from March until August 1996, it was later re-published in omnibus (1996) and hardback (2000) editions with minor updates, largely relating to certain errors. King had this to say in the combined edition, “I did change the moment where Percy Wetmore, bound in a straightjacket, raises one hand to wipe the sweat from his face.” The original Book Six,
Coffey on the Mile
, read:  

I reached up, grabbed the end of the runner he’d worked loose, and gave it a hard yank. It made a loud peeling sound. Brutal winced. Percy yipped with pain and began rubbing his lips. He tried to speak, realized he couldn’t do it with a hand over his mouth, and lowered it.  

The combined edition reads: “I reached up, grabbed the end of the runner he’d worked loose, and gave it a hard yank. It made a loud peeling sound. Brutal winced. Percy yipped with pain and his eyes watered.” 

In the earlier chapter detailing King’s Realities it was noted that in 2003 he released a revised and expanded version of the first Dark Tower novel,
The Gunslinger
. In that case King’s major reasons for revision related to bringing the first volume of a seven volume epic into line with the mythology of the subsequent volumes; and to fixing the writing problems suffered by the young man who wrote the novels’ five parts over the period from 1970 to its initial publication as a Limited Edition in 1982. 

The parts that made up the novel were first published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
during 1978, 1980 and 1981. There are notable differences between the original publications in the magazine and the subsequent Limited Edition published by Grant (1982), republished as a mass-market version by NAL (1988). While some of the at least 98 changes were apparently to improve the writing or to fix errors, others are substantive. Compare for instance Roland saying, “I trained David. I friended him,” in
The Slow Mutants
to, “I never trained David. I friended him,” in the original novel.  

So, there are actually
three
versions of
The Gunslinger
– the combination of the five short stories, the “original” novel and the “revised and expanded” novel! 

Editions of
Cell
released in January and February 2006 carried “an excerpt – in the author’s hand” of
Lisey’s Story
, from “Part One: Bool Hunt / Chapter One: Lisey and Amanda (Everything the Same).” This “excerpt” was slightly revised in the final edition of the novel (see also the note about revision of the
Lisey and the Madman
below). 

In 2004 Centipede Press published a deluxe edition of
‘Salem’s Lot
, which also included forty-nine pages of “Deleted Scenes” from the original manuscript. These scenes were included in a separate section after the original version, making the examination of the excised material a simple matter. The signed Limited was of 425 copies; an unsigned edition was released in 2005. The book also included
Jerusalem’s Lot
and
One for the Road
, as well as King’s 1999
Introduction
to the Signet/Pocket edition of
‘Salem’s Lot
, published in this instance as the
Afterword
. A trade version was published in November 2005. 

Three key changes from the first draft of the novel to the final version are of interest. The town infested by vampires was not Jerusalem’s Lot, but Momson (Momson, Vermont appears separately in the final version; but Momson, Maine appears in certain of the “Deleted Scenes”); the head vampire’s name was Sarlinov, not Barlow; and Father Callahan killed himself with a knife when confronted by Sarlinov (King took some form of pity on the Father in the published novel, allowing him to leave town by bus after losing his faith and, therefore, also allowing his appearance nearly three decades later in another town under threat, Calla Bryn Sturgis of
Wolves of the Calla
). 

Regarded by many as King’s masterpiece,
The Stand
was first published in 1978, although it had been severely edited for length by King’s publishers. Subsequent paperback editions used the original hardcover text for a period. The timeline of the events in this first version is 1980. US paperback editions of this original edition moved to a new timeline of 1985. The Signet edition of January 1980 was the first of these editions. In it King provides an
Author’s Note
, which concludes “minor revisions have been made for this Signet edition of this novel.” Most, if not all, overseas paperback editions used the original hardcover text until The
Complete and Uncut
edition was released. Books carrying this 1985 timeline form the
second
version of the tale. 

In 1990 King arranged for the republication of the book as he had originally intended, in a
Complete and Uncut
edition, with a 1990 timeline; and this forms the
third
version. In addition to restoring most of the material cut from the original novel that version also included new material. King also penned two screenplay adaptations, an unproduced movie script and the produced mini-series script. These form the
fourth
and
fifth
versions of the tale! The two scripts are discussed in considerable detail in a later chapter.
 

Short Stories/Novellas/Screenplays 

The major area for King’s revisions is of his short stories and novellas. This partly resulted from his updating of his
earliest
stories for collection in his mass market books; and partly from what appears to be a form of perfectionism – it seems Big Steve is never finished with a story and simply cannot resist a chance to make it better, or to change it to reflect his mood or the current point in his career (for instance, a number of stories were converted into Castle Rock tales on revision). 

King has also adapted many of his stories for the screen. Some of these scripts were produced, others were not, but each resulted in a slightly different story from that adapted. So, here is a rather lengthy tour of Stephen King’s list of revised tales. 

1408
was originally published in the audio book
Blood and Smoke
(1999). Its first text appearance was in
Everything’s Eventual
(2002). That publication contained a number of differences from the original audio version. They were relatively minor (for instance, one changed the name of a song and the other changed a name mentioned by Mike Enslin) and did not constitute a new version of the story. 

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away
was originally published in
The New Yorker
magazine for 29 January 2001. It was republished in
Everything’s Eventual
with minor variations (for example, the town of Hackberry Chalk, Texas became Hackberry, Texas).  

The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
was first published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
for June 1984. King made minor revisions for its inclusion in
Skeleton Crew
the following year, including the correction of an error (in the magazine version Henry Wilson cut the power cable to his car radio but still managed to listen to it during the trip!) 

Battleground
was originally published in
Cavalier
for September 1972. For its publication in
Night Shift
(1978) there were very minor wording revisions. A new version of the story was included in the unproduced
Night Shift
screenplay. 

Beachworld
originally appeared in
Weird Tales
for Fall 1984 and was republished in
Skeleton Crew
the following year with minor wording variations and the deletion of a character (“Send Chang down. One of these boys is badly dehydrated.”)