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Blaze (novel)
''Blaze'' is a novel by American writer Stephen King, published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. King announced on his website that he "found it" in an attic. As stated in the afterword of ''Different Seasons,'' it was written before ''Carrie.'' King offered the original draft of the novel to his Doubleday publishers at the same time as '''Salem's Lot''; the latter was chosen to be his second novel and ''Blaze'' became a "trunk novel." King rewrote the manuscript, editing out much of what he perceived as over-sentimentality in the original text, and offered the book for publication in 2007. The book also contains "Memory", a short story that was first published in 2006 and which King has since worked into ''Duma Key''. Plot summary The story concerns Clayton Blaisdell Jr. (known as "Blaze" for short, thus the title), a mentally disabled small-time con artist who kidnaps a wealthy gentleman's baby son, in the hopes of fulfilling the dreams of George Thomas Rackley, Blaze's d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high standing in pop culture, his books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. King has published 64 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections.Jackson, Dan (February 18, 2016)"A Beginner's Guide to Stephen King Books". Thrillist. Retrieved February 5, 2019. King has received Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and British Fantasy Society Awards. In 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He has also received awards for his cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memory (Stephen King)
"Memory" is a short story by Stephen King, originally published in 2006. It was the basis for King's 2008 novel ''Duma Key''. Plot summary Edgar Freemantle is the millionaire owner of The Freemantle Company, a Minnesota-based general contractor. While visiting a construction site, he is severely injured in an accident that sees him lose most of his right arm, break multiple bones, and lose part of the vision in his right eye. Freemantle suffers from amnesia and mood swings, leading to the end of his marriage six months following the accident. After Freemantle begins contemplating suicide, his psychologist Dr Xander Kamen encourages him to resume his childhood hobby of sketching. While convalescing by Lake Phalen, Freemantle witnesses a car accident in which his neighbor's dog, "Gandalf", is struck by a car. Realizing Gandalf is fatally injured, Freemantle channels memories of his own accident, which inexplicably gives him the strength to euthanise the dog using his left arm. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2007 American Novels
7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, superstition and philosophy. The seven Classical planets resulted in seven being the number of days in a week. It is often considered lucky in Western culture and is often seen as highly symbolic. Unlike Western culture, in Vietnamese culture, the number seven is sometimes considered unlucky. It is the first natural number whose pronunciation contains more than one syllable. Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, Indians wrote 7 more or less in one stroke as a curve that looks like an uppercase vertically inverted. The western Ghubar Arabs' main contribution was to make the longer line diagonal rather than straight, though they showed some tendencies to making the digit more rectilinear. The eastern Arabs developed the digit fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment arrived in 1841. ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' was printed in book form in 1841. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London. Queen Victoria read the novel in 1841 and found it "very interesting and cleverly written". Plot Background The events of the book seem to take place around 1825. In Chapter 29, Miss Monflathers refers to the death of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, Lord Byron, who died on 19 April 1824. When the inquest rules (incorrectly) that Quilp committed suicide, his corpse is ordered to be burial at cross-roads, buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart, a practice banned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Little Match Girl
"The Little Match Girl" ( da, Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne, meaning "The little girl with the sulphur-sticks", i.e. matches) is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story, about a dying child's dreams and hope, was first published in 1845. It has been adapted to various media, including animated, live-action, and VR films as well as television musicals. Summary On a freezing New Year's Eve, a poor young girl, shivering and barefoot, tries to sell matches in the street. Afraid to go home because her father would beat her for failing to sell any matches, she huddles in the alley between two houses and lights matches, one by one, to warm herself. However, the girl is ignored by passersby as no one buys from her, leaving her to suffer alone in the cold weather. In the flame of the matches, she sees a series of comforting visions: the warm iron stove, the lovely roast goose, the great glorious Christmas tree. Each vision disappears as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Literae Humaniores#Greats, Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional Classics, classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duma Key
''Duma Key'' is a novel by American writer Stephen King published on January 22, 2008, by Scribner. The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List. It is King's first novel to be set in Florida, as well as the first to be set in Minnesota. The dust jacket features holographic lettering. Plot Wealthy Minnesotan building-contractor Edgar Freemantle barely survives a severe work-site accident wherein his truck is crushed by a crane. Freemantle loses his right arm, while suffering severe head injuries impairing his speech, vision, and memory. During his long recovery, Edgar experiences suicidal thoughts and violent abusive mood swings, spurring his wife to file for divorce. On the advice of his psychologist, Dr. Kamen, Edgar relocates southward, renting a beach house on the island of Duma Key, off Florida's coast. Kamen further advises Freemantle to rekindle his onetime sketching hobby as a restorative. Edgar retains local college student Jack Cantori as part-time shop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
'Salem's Lot
''Salem's Lot'' is a 1975 horror fiction, horror novel by American author Stephen King. It was his second published novel. The story involves a writer named Ben Mears who returns to the town of Jerusalem's Lot (Stephen King), Jerusalem's Lot (or 'Salem's Lot for short) in Maine, where he lived from the age of five through nine, only to discover that the residents are becoming vampires. The town is revisited in the short stories "Jerusalem's Lot" and "One for the Road (short story), One for the Road", both from King's story collection ''Night Shift (short story collection), Night Shift'' (1978). The novel was nominated for the World Fantasy Award—Novel, World Fantasy Award in 1976 and the Locus Award for the All-Time Best Fantasy Novel in 1987. In two separate interviews in the 1980s, King said that, of all his books, ''Salem's Lot'' was his favorite. In his June 1983 ''Playboy'' interview, the interviewer mentioned that because it was his favorite, King was planning a sequel, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bachman
Richard Bachman is a pen name (as well as fictional character) of American horror fiction author Stephen King. King portrays Bachman in the third season of the FX television series '' Sons of Anarchy''. Origin At the beginning of King's career, the general view among publishers was that an author was limited to one book per year, since publishing more would be unacceptable to the public. King therefore wanted to write under another name in order to increase his publication without over-saturating the market for the King "brand". He convinced his publisher, Signet Books, to print these novels under a pseudonym. In his introduction to '' The Bachman Books,'' King states that adopting the pen name Bachman was also an attempt to make sense out of his career and try to answer the question of whether his success was due to talent or luck. He says he deliberately released the Bachman novels with as little marketing presence as possible and did his best to "load the dice against" Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doubleday (publisher)
Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 and was the largest in the United States by 1947. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed them through its own stores. In 2009 Doubleday merged with Knopf Publishing Group to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which is now part of Penguin Random House. In 2019, the official website presents Doubleday as an imprint, not a publisher. History The firm was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday in partnership with Samuel Sidney McClure. McClure had founded the first U.S. newspaper syndicate in 1884 (McClure Syndicate) and the monthly ''McClure's Magazine'' in 1893. One of their first bestsellers was ''The Day's Work'' by Rudyard Kipling, a short story collection that Macmillan published in Britain late in 1898. Other authors published by the company in its early years include W. Somerset M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carrie (novel)
''Carrie'' is a 1974 horror novel by American author Stephen King. Taking place in Chamberlain, Maine, it revolves around Carrie White, a friendless, bullied high-school girl from an abusive religious household who discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Feeling guilt toward harassing Carrie, Sue Snell invites Carrie to the prom with Tommy Ross, but a humiliating prank during the prom by Christ Hargensen leads to Carrie destroying the town with her powers. The narrative contains fictional documents in approximately chronological order that present multiple perspectives on the prom incident and its perpetrator. ''Carrie'' deals with themes of ostracization and revenge, with the opening shower scene and the destruction of Chamberlain being pivotal scenes. King started writing ''Carrie'', intended to be a short story for the men's magazine ''Cavalier'', after a friend's suggestion about writing a story of a female character. Though King initially gave up writing ''Carrie'' due ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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