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Appendix ANateon Previous Criticism So much writing and research about Stephen King has been published since the 1980s that it is difficult to avoid turning a brief exposition into a bibliography. I will therefore confine myself to a few remarks on the references that have particular relevance to this work. Given the extent of King criticism-about forty books have been published about King and/or his work in the United States alone (Wiater, Golden, and Wagner / 460)-its quality varies considerably. Since popular criticism and academic criticism are not necessarily mutually exclusive, I prefer to comment on these works in the rough order of their original publication / discussing, however, the works by one and the same critic together. Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller have published three collections of essays on King/s work (Reign ofFear: The Fiction and Films of Stephen King, however, is edited by Don Herron, although published by Underwood and Miller [1988]) and two collections of interviews with him. Fear Itself: the Horror Fiction ofStephen King (1982) contains the first collection of essays on King, with a foreword by King, an introduction by Peter Straub, and an afterword by George Romero. The essays vary from Alan Ryan's unsuccessful attempt to view 'Salem's Lot (1975) as a fairy tale for grownups, to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's thorough analysis of mythical and fairy-tale themes in King's work and Don Herron's insightful comparison of King's fiction with earlier works in the genre. Although most of the critics in Kingdom of Fear: The World of Stephen King (1986) have a positive view of King/s work, both Tony Magistrale and Stanley Wiater, Christopher Golden, and Hank Wagner note that the editor Tim Underwood/s essay "The Skull beneath the Skin" looks on it most unfavorably (Magistrale, Voyages, ii-iv; Wiater, Golden, and Wagner, 461)/ in claiming that King's "work probably won't last" (255). 269 Copyrighted Material Appendix: A Note on Previous Criticism Both interview collections, Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King (1988) and Feast ofFear: Conversations with Stephen King (1989), are compiled from various sources and are organized by theme. A friend of King's, Douglas E. Winter, provides what he calls"a critical appreciation": an intermingling of biography, literary analysis, and interviews (xiii). Stephen King: The Art of Darkness (1984), an updated and expanded version of The Reader's Guide to Stephen King (1982), is the first and only authorized study of King. The third edition in 1986 also reveals the details of how King has employed the Richard Bachman pseudonym. Winter's enthusiastic effort serves as a useful reader's guide to King, but, as Magistrale notes, he must sometimes sacrifice analytical depth "in favor of tracing the broad sweep of King's prolific canon" (Landscape, 1). Winter takes Stella Flanders's journey in "The Reach" (1981) as a starting point in viewing King's fiction. Winter claims: "To ask why we read horror fiction is to ask why Stella Flanders took that walk [to the unknown] on that cold winter's day of the storyteller 's imagination" (Art, 1). Winter has also edited Faces of Fear: Encounters with the Masters ofModern Horror, which includes an interview with King. In Discovering Stephen King (1985), one of the first collections of critical essays on King's early writings, the editor, Darrell Schweitzer, analyzes the state of King criticism and includes a brief King biography as well as synopses of his early fiction. Such contemporaries as Randall D. Larson, Debra Stump, and Leonard G. Heldreth focus on the discovery of sin and its moral consequences, free will and responsibility, and mortality versus immortality in the horror genre, respectively, whereas Michael R. Collings discusses the various genres in The Stand (1978), and Robert M. Price examines how King reflects H. P. Lovecraft's visions of horror. In addition to the wide range of topics, the quality of the essays is uneven. Michael R. Collings provides both quality and quantity. In 1985 Collings authored three monographs and coauthored a fourth with his student David A. Engebretson. The cooperation brought about The Shorter Works ofStephen King, which analyzes King's short stories and the four novellas in Different Seasons (1982). Collings maintains that while "King is known primarily for his novels, he has also produced a substantial body of short stories, including some of the finest examples of supernatural horror" (The Shorter Works ofStephen King, 1). With this view he joins the long...

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