A list of our favourite horror books that nearly never were.
In 1978, Stephen King was riding high – “Carrie”, “Salem’s Lot”, and “The Shining” had all been bestsellers. How crushing it must have been to have had his fourth book – “The Stand” initially rejected by his publishers, Doubleday.
The marketing team couldn’t figure out how to pitch it to the public, and his editor refused to touch it. It was only when King voluntarily cut more than FOUR HUNDRED PAGES from his longest tome that Double Day agreed to consider it.
The rest is history, but it was only with the success of “IT” and “Misery” that saw a new edition published in 1990, with the original material re-inserted.
2. Martin Adil-Smith’s “A Gathering of Twine”
In 2011, things were grim in the Adil-Smith household. Redundancy and economic woes had coincided with the arrival of a first child. Oh yeah, and Martin Adil-Smith’s debut horror novel had been rejected by over 200 literary agents.
It was only a chance meeting with an editor and his literary agent wife that stopped the young writer giving up completely, and in 2013 “A Gathering of Twine” became the breakout smash hit on Amazon, garnering praise and awards before moving on to the bestseller lists.
3. HP Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”
Today, Lovecraft is a celebrated writer of cult classics such as “Call of Cthulhu”, “The Music of Eric Zann”, and “Cool Air”.
But it was not so during the writer’s lifetime, and he was largely ignored, so much those that his 1927 novella “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” remained unpublished until five years after death.
It was only the intervention of his literary executor, August Derleth, and Donald Wandrei, that saw the story eventually make it into print in 1941.
4. Clive Barker’s “Book of Blood Omnibus 1”
Clive Barker is best known for creating such memorable villains such as Pinhead (Hellraiser) and Candyman, but it was not always so.
In the middle 1980’s Barker was struggling, and his collection of short stories, “Books of Blood” was struggling to sell. It was only when Stephen King personally intervened and wrote to both Barker and his publishers that the book took off.
5. Anne Rice’s “Interview With The Vampire”
“The Vampire Chronicles” catapulted Anne Rice to fame, and endured her to millions, but, in 1973, Rice was at an all time low following the death of her first child, Michelle, from leukemia and it is widely reported that she turned to alcohol to cope.
However, by the end of 1976, this grief had found a creative channel and “Interview With The Vampire” garnered so much success that it was later turned into a film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
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