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The Shining (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel
by American author Stephen King
. The title was inspired by the John Lennon
song "Instant Karma!
", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King as a preeminent author in the horror genre. A film based upon the book, The Shining
directed by Stanley Kubrick
, was released in 1980. The book was later adapted into a television mini-series
in 1997.
The book is dedicated to King's son, Joseph
: "This is for Joe Hill King, who shines on."
Danny's clairvoyance makes him sensitive to supernatural forces. Shortly after the family's initial arrival at the hotel, Danny and the hotel chef, Dick Hallorann, talk privately to discuss Danny's talent and the hotel's sinister nature. Dick informs Danny that he shares Danny's abilities (though to a lesser degree), as did Dick's grandmother, who called it "shining". Dick warns Danny to avoid Room 217, and reassures him that the things he may see are merely pictures which cannot harm him. The conversation ends with Dick saying to Danny, "If there is trouble...you give a shout."
The hotel has a personality in its own right, and acts as a psychic lens: it manipulates the living and the dead for its own purposes, and magnifies the psychic powers of any living people who reside there and makes them more sensitive to its urgings. Danny has premonitions of the hotel's danger to his family and begins seeing ghosts and frightening visions from the hotel's past, but puts up with them in the hope that they are not dangerous in the present. Although Danny is close to his father, he does not tell either of his parents about his visions because he senses that the caretaking job is important to his father and the family's future. Wendy thinks about taking Danny away from the Overlook to leave Jack there to finish the job on his own, but Danny refuses, thinking his father will be happier if they stay. Danny soon realizes, however, that his presence in the hotel makes it more powerful and enables it to make normally harmless objects and situations dangerous, such as topiary
animals that come to life.
The hotel has difficulty possessing Danny, so it begins to possess Jack, frustrating his need and desire to work. Jack becomes increasingly unstable, and the sinister ghosts of the hotel gradually begin to overtake him. One day he goes to the bar of the hotel, previously empty of alcohol, and finds it fully stocked. As he gets drunk, the hotel attempts to use Jack to kill Wendy and Danny in order to absorb Danny's psychic abilities. Wendy and Danny get the better of Jack, locking him into the walk-in pantry, but the ghost of Delbert Grady, a former caretaker who murdered his family and then committed suicide, releases him. Wendy discovers that they are completely isolated at the Overlook, as Jack has sabotaged the hotel's snowmobile and smashed the CB radio in the office. Jack strikes Wendy with one of the hotel's roque
mallets, breaking three ribs, a kneecap, and one vertebra in her back. Wendy stabs Jack in the small of his back with a large butcher knife, then crawls away to the caretaker's suite and locks herself in the bathroom, with Jack in pursuit. Jack tries to break the door with the mallet, but before he unlocks the door she keeps him back by cutting him with some razor blades.
Hallorann, working at a winter resort in Florida, has heard Danny's psychic call for help and rushes back to the Overlook. Jack leaves Wendy in the bathroom and ambushes Hallorann, shattering his jaw and giving him a concussion with the mallet, before setting off after Danny. Danny distracts Jack by saying "You're not my daddy," having realized that the Overlook has completely taken over Jack by playing on his alcoholism. Jack temporarily regains control of himself and tells Danny, "Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you". Soon after, Jack is quickly possessed by the hotel again. He violently bashes his own face and skull in with his mallet so Danny can no longer recognize him as his father. Danny, realizing that his father is now gone forever, tells Jack that the unstable boiler is going to explode. In response, Jack rushes to the basement. Danny and Wendy reunite in the lobby and they flee the Overlook with Hallorann. Though Jack tries to relieve the boiler pressure, it explodes, destroying the hotel. The building's spirit makes one last desperate attempt to possess Hallorann and make him kill Danny and Wendy, but he shakes it off and brings them to safety.
The novel ends with Danny and Wendy summering at a resort in Maine where Hallorann, the head chef, talks with Danny and comforts him over the loss of his father.
is a recovering alcoholic who lost his teaching job due to beating a student for slashing his car's tires. He takes his family to the hotel, but is driven by the hotel and its spirits to drink. Jack goes insane and attempts to kill Wendy, Danny and Dick Hallorann with a roque mallet. At the end of the novel, the mutual love of Jack and his son allows Jack to redeem himself by aiding his family to escape before the Overlook explodes, killing him.
Hallorann additionally appears in Stephen King's It
as a 19-year-old Private First Class
"mess-cook". Hallorann helped create "The Black Spot," a club for black enlisted men, which was burned down in a racially motivated attack in 1930. During the fire, Hallorann used his "shine" to determine the safest exit from the burning building which had become a deathtrap, saving many lives in the process, including Will Hanlon, Mike Hanlon's father.
and Salem's Lot, both of which are set in small towns in King's home state of Maine, King was looking for a change of pace for the next book. "I wanted to spend a year away from Maine so that my next novel would have a different sort of background." King opened an atlas of the US on the kitchen table and randomly pointed to a location, which turned out to be Boulder, Colorado
. So in early 1974, King and his wife, Tabitha, and their two children, Naomi and Joe, moved across the country to Colorado.
Around Halloween, Tabitha decided that the adult Kings needed a mini-vacation and, on the advice of locals, they decided to try out a resort hotel adjacent to Estes Park, Colorado (nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountain National Park
) called the Stanley Hotel. On October 30, 1974, Stephen and Tabitha checked into the Stanley. They almost were not able to check in as the hotel was closing for the off season the next day and the credit card slips had already been packed away.
Stephen and Tabitha were the only two guests in the hotel that night. "When we arrived, they were just getting ready to close for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place — with all those long, empty corridors . . ." They checked into room 217 which they found out was said to be haunted. This is where room 217 comes from in the book.
Ten years prior, King had read Ray Bradbury
's The Veldt
and was inspired to someday write a story about a person whose dreams would become real. In 1972 King started a novel entitled Darkshine, which was to be about a psychic boy in a psychic amusement park, but the idea never came to fruition and King abandoned the book. During the night at the Stanley, this story came back to him.
Tabitha and Stephen had dinner that evening in the grand dining room, totally alone. They were offered one choice for dinner, the only meal still available. Taped orchestral music played in the room and theirs was the only table set for dining. "Except for our table all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book in my mind".
After dinner, Tabitha decided to turn in, but Stephen took a walk around the empty hotel. He ended up in the bar and was served drinks by a bartender named Grady.
"That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind."
Originally conceived as a five-act tragedy play, the story evolved into a five-act novel that also included many of King's own personal demons.
According to "Guests and Ghosts," an Internet article, the Stanley, which was built by Freelan Oscar ("F.O.") Stanley, based on the designs of his wife, Flora, opened in 1903 and was "once a luxury hotel for the well-heeled Edwardian-era tourist". The hotel boasts having had such guests as not only King but also Theodore Roosevelt
, Bob Dylan
, Cary Grant
, Doris Day
, Billy Graham, Japan
’s Emperor Hirohito, and John Philip Sousa
.
The Shining was also heavily influenced by Shirley Jackson
's The Haunting of Hill House
, Edgar Allan Poe
's The Masque of the Red Death
and The Fall of the House of Usher
, and Robert Marasco
's Burnt Offerings. The story has been often compared to Guy de Maupassant
's story "The Inn".
Prior to writing The Shining, King had written Roadwork
and The Body
which were both published later. The first draft of The Shining took less than four months to complete and he was able to publish it before the others.
Bill Thompson, King's editor at Doubleday, tried to talk King out of The Shining as he felt after Carrie and Salem's Lot, King would get "typed" as a horror writer. King considered that a compliment.
Originally there was a prologue titled "Before the Play" that chronicled earlier events in the Overlook's nightmarish history and an interlude in which a young Jack Torrance is himself abused by his father, also an alcoholic, while a voice tells him that "what you see is what you'll be". It was removed from the finished manuscript, although it was later published in the magazines Whispers and TV Guide
(the latter, in an abridged version, to promote King's new miniseries adaptation of the novel). There also was an epilogue titled "After the Play", but it appears to no longer exist, as it was never published, and King maintains he does not have a copy of it.
, and the main character's telepathic abilities in The Stand
are referred to as "the shine". The character of Dick Hallorann appears in King's It
, as a young soldier who saves the life of the father of the main character at an African-American nightclub. The Regulators
, written by King under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman
, refers to the novel The Shining, and one of the Dark Tower novels refers to the film version. A poem that Jack Torrance reads in the novel (actually written by King as an undergraduate) resurfaces in Lisey's Story
.
in Toronto
, Canada
, King described to the audience an idea for a sequel to The Shining. The story would follow Danny Torrance, now in his 40s, living in upstate New York
, where he works as an orderly at a hospice
and helps terminally ill
patients pass away with the aid of some extraordinary powers. Later, on December 1, 2009, King posted a poll on his official website, asking visitors to vote for which book he should write next, Doctor Sleep
or the next Dark Tower novel
:
Voting ended on December 31, 2009, and it was revealed that Doctor Sleep received 5,861 votes, while The Wind Through the Keyhole received 5,812.
In 2011, King posted an update confirming that Dr. Sleep is in the works and that the plot includes a traveling group of vampires called The Tribe.
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
by American author Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. The title was inspired by the John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
song "Instant Karma!
Instant Karma!
"Instant Karma!" is a song written by John Lennon, released as a single in 1970 on Apple Records, catalogue Apple 1003 in the United Kingdom, Apple 1818 in the United States. It is the third solo single issued by Lennon, and it peaked at #3 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100 singles...
", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King as a preeminent author in the horror genre. A film based upon the book, The Shining
The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
directed by Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, was released in 1980. The book was later adapted into a television mini-series
The Shining (TV miniseries)
The Shining is a three-part television miniseries based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. Directed by Mick Garris from King's teleplay, the series was first aired in 1997.-Plot:...
in 1997.
The book is dedicated to King's son, Joseph
Joe Hill (writer)
Joseph Hillstrom King , better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American author and comic book writer. He has published two novels—Heart Shaped Box and Horns—and a collection of short stories entitled 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the author of the graphic novel series Locke & Key...
: "This is for Joe Hill King, who shines on."
Plot summary
Jack Torrance is a temperamental alcoholic and aspiring writer. He is trying to rebuild his life after previously breaking his son's arm in a drunken rage and assaulting a pupil at a Vermont prep school where he was a teacher. After losing his teaching position and giving up drinking, Jack accepts a job as a winter caretaker at the large, isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado to rebuild his life with his family and write a new play. Jack, his wife Wendy, and their clairvoyant son, Danny, move into the Overlook.Danny's clairvoyance makes him sensitive to supernatural forces. Shortly after the family's initial arrival at the hotel, Danny and the hotel chef, Dick Hallorann, talk privately to discuss Danny's talent and the hotel's sinister nature. Dick informs Danny that he shares Danny's abilities (though to a lesser degree), as did Dick's grandmother, who called it "shining". Dick warns Danny to avoid Room 217, and reassures him that the things he may see are merely pictures which cannot harm him. The conversation ends with Dick saying to Danny, "If there is trouble...you give a shout."
The hotel has a personality in its own right, and acts as a psychic lens: it manipulates the living and the dead for its own purposes, and magnifies the psychic powers of any living people who reside there and makes them more sensitive to its urgings. Danny has premonitions of the hotel's danger to his family and begins seeing ghosts and frightening visions from the hotel's past, but puts up with them in the hope that they are not dangerous in the present. Although Danny is close to his father, he does not tell either of his parents about his visions because he senses that the caretaking job is important to his father and the family's future. Wendy thinks about taking Danny away from the Overlook to leave Jack there to finish the job on his own, but Danny refuses, thinking his father will be happier if they stay. Danny soon realizes, however, that his presence in the hotel makes it more powerful and enables it to make normally harmless objects and situations dangerous, such as topiary
Topiary
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training live perennial plants, by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, perhaps geometric or fanciful; and the term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. It can be...
animals that come to life.
The hotel has difficulty possessing Danny, so it begins to possess Jack, frustrating his need and desire to work. Jack becomes increasingly unstable, and the sinister ghosts of the hotel gradually begin to overtake him. One day he goes to the bar of the hotel, previously empty of alcohol, and finds it fully stocked. As he gets drunk, the hotel attempts to use Jack to kill Wendy and Danny in order to absorb Danny's psychic abilities. Wendy and Danny get the better of Jack, locking him into the walk-in pantry, but the ghost of Delbert Grady, a former caretaker who murdered his family and then committed suicide, releases him. Wendy discovers that they are completely isolated at the Overlook, as Jack has sabotaged the hotel's snowmobile and smashed the CB radio in the office. Jack strikes Wendy with one of the hotel's roque
Roque
Roque is an American variant of croquet played on a hard, smooth surface. Popular in the first quarter of the 20th century and billed "the Game of the Century" by its enthusiasts, it was an Olympic sport in the 1904 Summer Games, replacing croquet from the previous games.-Roque court and...
mallets, breaking three ribs, a kneecap, and one vertebra in her back. Wendy stabs Jack in the small of his back with a large butcher knife, then crawls away to the caretaker's suite and locks herself in the bathroom, with Jack in pursuit. Jack tries to break the door with the mallet, but before he unlocks the door she keeps him back by cutting him with some razor blades.
Hallorann, working at a winter resort in Florida, has heard Danny's psychic call for help and rushes back to the Overlook. Jack leaves Wendy in the bathroom and ambushes Hallorann, shattering his jaw and giving him a concussion with the mallet, before setting off after Danny. Danny distracts Jack by saying "You're not my daddy," having realized that the Overlook has completely taken over Jack by playing on his alcoholism. Jack temporarily regains control of himself and tells Danny, "Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you". Soon after, Jack is quickly possessed by the hotel again. He violently bashes his own face and skull in with his mallet so Danny can no longer recognize him as his father. Danny, realizing that his father is now gone forever, tells Jack that the unstable boiler is going to explode. In response, Jack rushes to the basement. Danny and Wendy reunite in the lobby and they flee the Overlook with Hallorann. Though Jack tries to relieve the boiler pressure, it explodes, destroying the hotel. The building's spirit makes one last desperate attempt to possess Hallorann and make him kill Danny and Wendy, but he shakes it off and brings them to safety.
The novel ends with Danny and Wendy summering at a resort in Maine where Hallorann, the head chef, talks with Danny and comforts him over the loss of his father.
Danny Torrance
Daniel Anthony "Danny" Torrance is the five-year-old son of Jack and Wendy. He has the "Shining," which allows him to detect spirits and thus makes him a target of the Hotel. It also allows him to see past, present, and future events through his 'guide', Tony. Tony (his name taken from Danny's middle name, Anthony), is at first to Danny an imaginary playmate, then a source of fear, and finally a source of strength. Towards the end of the novel Tony reveals himself to Danny: "'Danny ... you're in a place deep down in your own mind. The place where I am. I'm a part of you, Danny.'" More specifically, Tony is Danny from the future: "Tony was like looking into a magic mirror and seeing himself in ten years"; "Tony ... the Daniel Anthony Torrance that would someday be."Jack Torrance
John Daniel "Jack" TorranceJack Torrance
Jack Torrance is a fictional character, the antagonist in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1980 movie adaptation of the novel, and by Steven Weber in the 1997 miniseries. The American Film Institute rated the character the 25th greatest film...
is a recovering alcoholic who lost his teaching job due to beating a student for slashing his car's tires. He takes his family to the hotel, but is driven by the hotel and its spirits to drink. Jack goes insane and attempts to kill Wendy, Danny and Dick Hallorann with a roque mallet. At the end of the novel, the mutual love of Jack and his son allows Jack to redeem himself by aiding his family to escape before the Overlook explodes, killing him.
Wendy Torrance
Winnifred "Wendy" Torrance is Jack's wife and Danny's mother. A strong woman, she remains at Jack's side as he struggles to stay sober, but is forced to fight for her and her son's life when Jack becomes completely possessed. She suffers multiple injuries at Jack's hands, including a broken back, but escapes to safety with Danny and Hallorann before the Overlook's boiler explodes.Dick Hallorann
Dick Hallorann is the chef of the Overlook Hotel and shares the "shining" ability with Danny. Dick is telepathically called by Danny to the hotel, and is almost killed by Jack with a roque mallet. At the end of the novel, Dick helps Danny and Wendy escape.Hallorann additionally appears in Stephen King's It
It (novel)
It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows the exploits of seven children as they are terrorized by the eponymous inter-dimensional predatory life-form that exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It"...
as a 19-year-old Private First Class
Private First Class
Private First Class is a military rank held by junior enlisted persons.- Singapore :The rank of Private First Class in the Singapore Armed Forces lies between the ranks of Private and Lance-Corporal . It is usually held by conscript soldiers midway through their national service term...
"mess-cook". Hallorann helped create "The Black Spot," a club for black enlisted men, which was burned down in a racially motivated attack in 1930. During the fire, Hallorann used his "shine" to determine the safest exit from the burning building which had become a deathtrap, saving many lives in the process, including Will Hanlon, Mike Hanlon's father.
Horace Derwent
Horace "Harry" Derwent was a self-made millionaire and former owner of the Overlook Hotel. He is responsible for much of the Overlook's notorious history. Derwent purchased the Overlook sometime in the early 1940s and invested over one million dollars into its renovation before the grand opening on August 29, 1945, which Derwent celebrated by hosting a lavish masked ball. He appears to Jack in the Colorado Lounge as one of the apparitions at the ball. However, unlike Lloyd the bartender, and Grady the caretaker, Derwent does not actually interact with Jack.Stuart Ullman
Stuart Ullman is the manager of the Overlook Hotel. The entire staff hates him, but nevertheless hold a grudging respect for his business ability. He does not believe Jack is suited for the caretaker job, but gives it to him because an old friend of Jack's sits on the board of directors. Jack shares a mutual hatred of the man, Jack often referring to him in his inner monologue as an officious little prick, or similar epithets. Ullman tells Jack about the tragedy of the previous caretaker.Editions
There are at least three special collector's editions, aside from the original and trade copies.- The first is a blue cover, with a faceless Danny in the middle. It includes a color photograph of the original hardcover and an introduction by Ken FollettKen FollettKen Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his works. Four of his books have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, and World Without End.-Early...
. - The second is a comic-book style front, in which Danny has a thought bubble containing the Overlook, with a new introduction by King.
- Another edition is a white cover with comic writing: "Stephen King" "The Shining" with a wasp in the lower-right corner.
Background
After writing CarrieCarrie (novel)
Carrie is American author Stephen King's first published novel, released in 1974. It revolves around the eponymous Carrie, a shy high-school girl, who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who tease her...
and Salem's Lot, both of which are set in small towns in King's home state of Maine, King was looking for a change of pace for the next book. "I wanted to spend a year away from Maine so that my next novel would have a different sort of background." King opened an atlas of the US on the kitchen table and randomly pointed to a location, which turned out to be Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
. So in early 1974, King and his wife, Tabitha, and their two children, Naomi and Joe, moved across the country to Colorado.
Around Halloween, Tabitha decided that the adult Kings needed a mini-vacation and, on the advice of locals, they decided to try out a resort hotel adjacent to Estes Park, Colorado (nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountain National Park
Rocky Mountain National Park
Rocky Mountain National Park is a national park located in the north-central region of the U.S. state of Colorado.It features majestic mountain views, a variety of wildlife, varied climates and environments—from wooded forests to mountain tundra—and easy access to back-country trails...
) called the Stanley Hotel. On October 30, 1974, Stephen and Tabitha checked into the Stanley. They almost were not able to check in as the hotel was closing for the off season the next day and the credit card slips had already been packed away.
Stephen and Tabitha were the only two guests in the hotel that night. "When we arrived, they were just getting ready to close for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place — with all those long, empty corridors . . ." They checked into room 217 which they found out was said to be haunted. This is where room 217 comes from in the book.
Ten years prior, King had read Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
's The Veldt
The Veldt
"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
and was inspired to someday write a story about a person whose dreams would become real. In 1972 King started a novel entitled Darkshine, which was to be about a psychic boy in a psychic amusement park, but the idea never came to fruition and King abandoned the book. During the night at the Stanley, this story came back to him.
Tabitha and Stephen had dinner that evening in the grand dining room, totally alone. They were offered one choice for dinner, the only meal still available. Taped orchestral music played in the room and theirs was the only table set for dining. "Except for our table all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book in my mind".
After dinner, Tabitha decided to turn in, but Stephen took a walk around the empty hotel. He ended up in the bar and was served drinks by a bartender named Grady.
"That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind."
Originally conceived as a five-act tragedy play, the story evolved into a five-act novel that also included many of King's own personal demons.
According to "Guests and Ghosts," an Internet article, the Stanley, which was built by Freelan Oscar ("F.O.") Stanley, based on the designs of his wife, Flora, opened in 1903 and was "once a luxury hotel for the well-heeled Edwardian-era tourist". The hotel boasts having had such guests as not only King but also Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
, Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
, Billy Graham, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
’s Emperor Hirohito, and John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
.
The Shining was also heavily influenced by Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...
's The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
For the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death
"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death" , is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a...
and The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque...
, and Robert Marasco
Robert Marasco
Robert Marasco was an American horror writer best known for the 1970 Broadway play Child's Play....
's Burnt Offerings. The story has been often compared to Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
's story "The Inn".
Prior to writing The Shining, King had written Roadwork
Roadwork
Roadwork is a novel by Stephen King, published in 1981 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books, which is no longer in print...
and The Body
The Body (novella)
The Body, or Fall from Innocence, is a novella by Stephen King, originally published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons and in 1986 adapted into the acclaimed film Stand by Me...
which were both published later. The first draft of The Shining took less than four months to complete and he was able to publish it before the others.
Bill Thompson, King's editor at Doubleday, tried to talk King out of The Shining as he felt after Carrie and Salem's Lot, King would get "typed" as a horror writer. King considered that a compliment.
Originally there was a prologue titled "Before the Play" that chronicled earlier events in the Overlook's nightmarish history and an interlude in which a young Jack Torrance is himself abused by his father, also an alcoholic, while a voice tells him that "what you see is what you'll be". It was removed from the finished manuscript, although it was later published in the magazines Whispers and TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
(the latter, in an abridged version, to promote King's new miniseries adaptation of the novel). There also was an epilogue titled "After the Play", but it appears to no longer exist, as it was never published, and King maintains he does not have a copy of it.
Links to King's other works
There are many links to other King books. The Overlook hotel is mentioned in MiseryMisery
Misery is a psychological horror novel by Stephen King. The novel was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1988, and was later made into a Hollywood film and an off-Broadway play of the same name.-Plot summary:...
, and the main character's telepathic abilities in The Stand
The Stand
The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King. It demonstrates the scenario in his earlier short story, Night Surf...
are referred to as "the shine". The character of Dick Hallorann appears in King's It
It (novel)
It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows the exploits of seven children as they are terrorized by the eponymous inter-dimensional predatory life-form that exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It"...
, as a young soldier who saves the life of the father of the main character at an African-American nightclub. The Regulators
The Regulators
The Regulators is a novel by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was published in 1996 at the same time as its "mirror" novel, Desperation. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the...
, written by King under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman
Richard Bachman
Richard Bachman is a pseudonym used by horror fiction author Stephen King.-Origin:At the beginning of Stephen King's career, the general view among publishers was such that an author was limited to a book every year, since publishing more would not be acceptable to the public...
, refers to the novel The Shining, and one of the Dark Tower novels refers to the film version. A poem that Jack Torrance reads in the novel (actually written by King as an undergraduate) resurfaces in Lisey's Story
Lisey's Story
Lisey's Story is a novel by Stephen King combining the elements of psychological horror and romance. It was released on October 24, 2006, and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 2007.-Plot:...
.
Sequel
On November 19, 2009, during a reading at the Canon TheatreCanon Theatre
-History:The Canon Theatre began as the Pantages Theatre in 1920 as a combination vaudeville and motion picture house. Designed by the great theatre architect Thomas W. Lamb, it was the largest cinema in Canada and one of the most elegant.The Pantages was built by the Canadian motion picture...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, King described to the audience an idea for a sequel to The Shining. The story would follow Danny Torrance, now in his 40s, living in upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
, where he works as an orderly at a hospice
Hospice
Hospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...
and helps terminally ill
Terminal illness
Terminal illness is a medical term popularized in the 20th century to describe a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and that is reasonably expected to result in the death of the patient within a short period of time. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as...
patients pass away with the aid of some extraordinary powers. Later, on December 1, 2009, King posted a poll on his official website, asking visitors to vote for which book he should write next, Doctor Sleep
Doctor Sleep (novel)
Dr. Sleep is an upcoming novel by the author Stephen King. King first mentioned the idea in November 2009. The author's official website confirmed the project on September 26, 2011.-Background:...
or the next Dark Tower novel
The Wind Through the Keyhole
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole is an upcoming novel by Stephen King. As part of The Dark Tower series, it will be the eighth Dark Tower novel, but, according to King, chronologically set between volumes four and five...
:
Voting ended on December 31, 2009, and it was revealed that Doctor Sleep received 5,861 votes, while The Wind Through the Keyhole received 5,812.
In 2011, King posted an update confirming that Dr. Sleep is in the works and that the plot includes a traveling group of vampires called The Tribe.
External links
- Bookpoi - How to identify first edition copies of The Shining by Stephen King.