Pet Sematary.

KING, Stephen.

Item Number: 116199

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1983.

First edition of “the most frightening novel Stephen King has ever written” (Publishers Weekly). Octavo, original black cloth. Boldly signed by Stephen King on the title page. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Linda Fennimore.

In 1978, King returned to his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono, to teach for a year as a gesture of gratitude for the education he had received there. During this time his family rented a house on a busy road in Orrington. The road claimed the lives of a number of pets, and the neighborhood children had created a pet cemetery in a field near the Kings' home. King's daughter Naomi buried her cat "Smucky" there after it was hit, and shortly thereafter their son Owen had a close call running toward the road. King wrote the novel based on their experiences, but feeling he had gone too far with the subject matter of the book, he discarded the idea of having it published, particularly since both his wife Tabitha and friend Peter Straub agreed Pet Sematary was too dark and unenjoyable. However, needing a final book for his contract King reluctantly submitted it to Doubleday on the advice of his wife Tabitha. The subsequent success of the book made King note how both Americans and British readers liked it despite him considering Pet Sematary too bleak in how "it just spirals down into darkness. It seems to be saying that nothing works and nothing is worth it, and I don’t really believe that." It was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1986, and adapted into a 1989 film of the same name. In November 2013, PS Publishing released Pet Sematary in a limited 30th Anniversary Edition.