Danse Macabre (book)

Danse Macabre is a 1981 non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, TV, radio, film and comics, and the influence of contemporary societal fears and anxieties on the genre.

King related in detail his primary inspiration for writing horror fiction in his non-fiction Danse Macabre (1981), in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause."

King's novel The Stand was published in Spanish as La danza de la muerte 'The Dance of Death', which caused some confusion between the two books (A later Spanish edition of this novel was titled Apocalipsis 'Apocalypse').

In Danse Macabre, King writes about the origins of The Stand at some length.

Among other things, King discusses the fact that he asked Dennis Etchison "to comb the errors" in the original edition, and thus the 1983 paperback edition contains the corrected text of Danse Macabre.

In 1983, Etchison was asked by Stephen King to be the film consultant/historian on King's book on the horror genre, Danse Macabre.

Danse Macabre is a 1981 non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, TV, radio, film and comics, and the influence of contemporary societal fears and anxieties on the genre.

King then turns his most weighty criticism toward television, borrowing Harlan Ellison's description of television as "the glass teat", and subtitling the chapter, "This Monster Is Brought to You by Gainesburgers". He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

At Stephen King's request, Ellison provided a description of himself and his writing in Danse Macabre: "My work is foursquare for chaos. I spend my life personally, and my work professionally, keeping the soup boiling. Gadfly is what they call you when you are no longer dangerous; I much prefer troublemaker, malcontent, desperado. I see myself as a combination of Zorro and Jiminy Cricket. My stories go out from here and raise hell. From time to time some denigrater or critic with umbrage will say of my work, 'He only wrote that to shock.' I smile and nod. Precisely."

He reviews horror anthology programs such as Thriller, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, and Night Gallery, ultimately concluding that television is severely limited in its ability to illustrate horror because it is enslaved to the demands of network Standards and Practices censorship and the appeasement of advertising executives that provide the financial means necessary for television to continue its free access.

In Danse Macabre, Stephen King's 1981 history and critique of horror fiction, King suggests that Thriller was the best series of its kind up to that point.

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

In his book Danse Macabre, noted horror author Stephen King writes at length on the novel, saying it's a contemporary ghost story with Southern Gothic roots and one of the best genre novels of the 20th century.

He makes the point that his agent Kirby McCauley had selected the obscure 1977 film Rituals as his favorite, while King himself chose 1979's Tourist Trap as one that "wields an eerie spooky power. Wax figures begin to move and come to life in a ruined, out-of-the-way tourist resort."

Author Stephen King, in his book Danse Macabre (1981), praised the film as an obscure classic, noting that the film "wields an eerie spooky power, as wax figures begin to move and come to life in a ruined, out-of-the-way tourist resort."

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

Stephen King, in his book Danse Macabre (1981), a non-fiction review of the horror genre, lists The Haunting of Hill House as one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century and provides a lengthy review.

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

Stephen King, in his non-fiction review of the horror medium, Danse Macabre, lists Ghost Story as one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century and provides a lengthy review within its "Horror Fiction" section.

While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of the H.P. Lovecraft collection The Lurker in the Shadows, which had belonged to his long-since-departed father. * Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft

King has made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own fascination with horror and the macabre and was the largest figure to influence his fiction writing.

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

King also discusses this novel at length in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre.

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

In 1981, Stephen King published a semi-autobiographical overview of the horror field, Danse Macabre. In a chapter focusing on 20th century practitioners, King devoted a whole section to Campbell's fiction, alongside that of Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Peter Straub, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney and others.

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

Stephen King, in his non-fiction review of the horror medium, Danse Macabre, listed The House Next Door as one of the finest horror novels of the 20th Century, and provides a lengthy review of the novel in its "Horror Fiction" section.

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

Stephen King considered this one of the best horror fiction books published between 1950 and 1980 in his 1981 non-fiction book about the horror genre, Danse Macabre, specifically reviewing the stories "Croatoan", "Hitler Painted Roses", "Lonely Women are the Vessels of Time", "Emissary from Hamelin" and "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet".

He discusses Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Ramsey Campbell's The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and James Herbert's The Fog.

* Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft

* Danse Macabre (1981), an examination by Stephen King of horror fiction in various media

King peppers his book with informal academic insight, discussing archetypes, important authors, common narrative devices, "the psychology of terror", and his key theory of "Dionysian horror".

King's novel The Stand was published in Spanish as La danza de la muerte 'The Dance of Death', which caused some confusion between the two books (A later Spanish edition of this novel was titled Apocalipsis 'Apocalypse').

Similarly, his 1978 collection of short stories Night Shift was released in France as Danse macabre in 1980.

In the introduction, King credits Bill Thompson, the editor of his first five published novels, and later editor at Doubleday, as being the inspiration for its creation.

In the introduction, King credits Bill Thompson, the editor of his first five published novels, and later editor at Doubleday, as being the inspiration for its creation.

Later, Berkley Books published a mass market paperback edition of the book on December 1, 1983 (ISBN: 978-0425064627).

On February 23, 2010, Gallery Books published a new edition of Danse Macabre (ISBN: 978-1439170984), a trade paperback with the corrected 1983 text, including both the original and the 1983 introductions, as well as a newly written piece "What's Scary?", which serves as a forenote to this 2010 edition.

However, Danse Macabre has a casual, non-linear writing style and expresses a desire to avoid "academic bullshit".