When was misery by stephen king published

Publisher Viking Press. Hardcover Russia. Paperback UK. From the Flap Stephen King is arguably the most popular novelist in the history of American fiction. Characters Hide List Show List. Not mentioned by name, but he was the one who was the caretaker that supposedly caused the Overlook Hotel to burn down. Described by Annie Wilkes. You murdered her! They punched deep into the pillow and he bounced like a ragdoll. His legs flared and he cried out. She froze, staring at him with that narrow black expression--that look of crevasse.

If Misery Chastain had been a real person, he knew he might very well have been called upon "to aid the police in their inquiries," as the euphemism went. After all, he had a motive--he had hated her. Ever since the third book, he had hated her.

For April Fools Day four years ago he'd had a small booklet privately printed and had sent it to a dozen close acquaintances. It had been called Misery's Hobby. In it Misery spent a cheerful country weekend boffing Growler, Ian's Irish setter.

He might have murdered her In the end, in spite of his having grown to despise her, Misery's death had been something of a surprise for him. He had remained true enough to himself for art to imitate life--however feebly to the very end of Misery's hackneyed adventures. She had died a mostly unexpected death. His cheerful capering had in no way changed the fact.

You are just a lying old dirty birdie. Sometimes that happens. It was like life, when someone just--" She overturned the table by the bed. The one shallow drawer spilled out. His wristwatch and pocket-change spilled out with it.

He hadn't even known they were in there. He cringed back from her. Her lips drew back from her teeth. Sometimes they go screaming and sometimes they go in their sleep--they just slip away, the way you said, sure.

God takes us when He think it's our time and a writer is God to the people in a story, he made them up just like God made US up and no one can get hold of God to make him explain, all right, okay, but as far as Misery goes I'll tell you one thing you dirty bird, I'll tell you that God just happens to have a couple of broken legs and God just happens to be in MY house eating MY food The deeper the well, the more exciting the story.

King doesn't stop digging. What's worse than going off a mountain road in your car? How about being held prisoner by a homicidal nurse. What's worse than those?

How about being hooked on prescription painkillers. How about being forced to write a novel under these conditions. Knowing you're going to be killed--likely shot, chopped up and fed to a pig--as soon as you finish your task.

What's worse than all of those? King isn't done imagining. Another characteristic of a great thriller is a great villain and Annie Wilkes is up there with the best. Details of what led to her to no longer being employed as a nurse would be frightening enough. King establishes a moral code for Annie, who murdered patients without remorse and inflicts suffering on her captive but refuses to take the Lord's name in vain. There's something unsettling about an adult who refuses to use profanity despite being profane, resorting to infantile expressions like "cockadoodie" instead.

I'm also tickled by Annie being a fan of bodice rippers. One superficial complaint is that King falls in love with italics and give his characters line readings, which I prefer authors not do, especially on every page. Another is that he includes several passages of Misery's Return , typed to omit the missing "N" on the typewriter Annie provides Paul. I'm happy that King got the chance to cook up and even write prose for a bodice ripper, but I didn't want to read it.

I wanted to read what would happen next between Paul and Annie and didn't like being interrupted. The story is also much more grisly than I felt it needed to be, but this is also a matter of taste. Readers who love Thomas Harris or Netflix's Mindhunter should love this while scaredy cats might not. The furnace was a dim bulk in the middle of the room. It looked like an octopus. He thought he would have been able to hear the chiming of the parlor clock if the night had been still, but a strong summer wind had blown up, as it so often did these nights, and there was only time, spreading out forever.

He could hear crickets singing just outside the house when the wind dropped Only it wasn't rats he was afraid of, was it? It was the trooper. His so-fucking-vivid imagination rarely gave him the horrors, but when it did, God help him. God help him once it was warmed up. It was not only warmed up now, it was hot and running on full choke. That there was no sense at all in what he was thinking made not a whit of difference in the dark.

In the dark, rationality seemed stupid and logic a dream. In the dark he thought with his skin. He kept seeing the trooper coming back to life-- some sort of life--out in the barn, sitting up, the loose hay with which Annie had covered him falling to either side of him and into his lap, his face plowed into bloody senselessness by the mower's blade.

Saw him crawling out of the barn and down the driveway to the bulkhead, the torn streamers of his uniform swinging and fluttering.

Saw him melting magically through the bulkhead and reintegrating his corpse's body down here. Saw him crawling across the packed dirt floor, and the little noises Paul heard weren't the rats but the sounds of his approach, and there was but a single thought in the cooling clay of the trooper's dead brain: You killed me. You opened your mouth and killed me. You threw an ashtray and killed me. You cockadoodie son of a bitch, you murdered my life.

I envy those capable of reading Misery without having seen the film adaptation by William Goldman and co-starring Kathy Bates in her Oscar winning performance as Annie Wilkes. The film does not age one bit, save that today's Paul Sheldon would've had a smartphone, likely damaged in the crash or out of its coverage area at Annie's farm.

Directed by Rob Reiner, Misery also has a fascinating production history. Even with five good movies to his credit with no bad ones, Reiner was unable to find a leading man willing to play Paul Sheldon. Warren Beatty flirted with the role and was involved enough to suggest that Paul's view spoiler [foot amputation hide spoiler ] would alienate viewers.

As a book lover, I love that this is a thriller where the protagonist uses his tormentor's love of fiction to defeat her. View all 28 comments. Dec 09, Calista rated it really liked it Shelves: award-various , genre-drama-tragedy , z-stephen-king , award-brams-stoker , , genre-horror-gothic , bage-mature.

I read this when I was in College. I found Carrie as a senior in high school and from there I started to plow through his catalog. I read this somewhere between and That's over 20 years ago. I love seeing all the Stephen King videos of the constant reader fandom. When I read those, there wasn't that and I read them for myself and didn't get to share with a community. I am considering doing a re-read of my favorite ones.

I still remember reading this and feeling chills all over my body. I remember Kathy Bates winning the Oscar for her role and then seeing the movie, which had me reading the book next.

The book is wonderful and in my top If you are looking for scary and getting creeped out, then this will do it. It's a masterpiece for certain. Spoilery ahead: The book is a bit different from the movie. The movie has her sledge-hammering the authors ankle while the book has her chop it off.

I thought the book was actually more human as it was a clean break. The shattered ankle would just be horrible. It came out around the time of Silence of the Lambs and both those books and movies are just creepy intense. View all 18 comments. Oct 16, Natalie Monroe rated it it was amazing Shelves: reread-for-the-nth-time , fabulous-five-stars , creepy-yet-entertaining , possible-creepers , mental-illness.

Misery was my first ever Stephen King novel. There I was, an impressionable year-old girl drunk on romances with none-fade-into-black sex scenes. Then my favorite English teacher recommended I read Misery. He was right. Misery is about the kind of fan that loves their chosen celebrity a little too much.

Like the man who shot John Lennon. Or stalkers that drive to Miley Cyrus's house with a bouquet of roses and a foam finger. The odd buttons that spoil Misery was my first ever Stephen King novel. The odd buttons that spoil a fandom. In this case, Paul Sheldon was rescued from a car crash by his number one fan, Annie. She loves his books, so when she finds out Paul killed her favorite character in the latest installment, she gets a little But no matter, she has the brains behind the masterpiece right here!

Paul is going to bring his character back from the dead for one last encore or she'll get upset again. And you do not want to make Annie upset. You scared yet? King's writing has a way of putting you directly in a character's shoes. Only he can make the abhorred third-person into first-person, so you're there with Paul every second of the way. You feel his terror when he realized his caretaker is not quite right in the head. You feel his pain from drug withdrawal.

You feel the resignation of burning your only first-draft manuscript in order to obtain said drugs. The rage. The hate. This is horror at its finest. One human imprisoned in a house by another. No cheap jump-scares. No bloody gore factor. No dime-store costume.

This is nail-your-balls-to-the-wall psychological shit , and damn if you don't lie awake at night wondering if the dark shape in the corner is Annie with a chainsaw in hand. So come along with me, dear Constant Reader. And be King's number one fan. View all 10 comments. As dispensers of TLC, nurses can shine. As with any other particular group of people, there are going to be some rotten apples in the barrel.

Meet Annie Wilkes. Sly, cunning, and quite mad. In her care, author Paul Sheldon, who has been grievously injured in a car accident. The thing is, no one knows he is there in her house. This is what true horror is made of, and it is accomplished without a smidge of the supernatural. Insanity and its machinations are in full bloom. Speaking in sings As dispensers of TLC, nurses can shine. Speaking in singsong baby voice dirty birdie, cockadoodie, kaka , Annie cleans up oogy messes and refers to Paul as Mister Man, sometimes Mister Smart Guy.

Oh, and she's his Number One Fan. Her attentive ministrations notwithstanding, it won't do to make her mad. View all 32 comments. I know I have an unpopular opinion on this one, but I thought this was just okay. I have a weird relationship with Stephen King books, I tend to either LOVE them or feel very meh about them, and unfortunately this one left me feeling very meh. The concept of of this book is great, and I love the idea of it: a huge fan of this author finds him in a car wreck and kidnaps him, forcing him to write the next book in a series about a girl named Misery which he has previously ended, and she's forcing h I know I have an unpopular opinion on this one, but I thought this was just okay.

The concept of of this book is great, and I love the idea of it: a huge fan of this author finds him in a car wreck and kidnaps him, forcing him to write the next book in a series about a girl named Misery which he has previously ended, and she's forcing him to re-write her story. Annie is an incredibly fascinating character to read about, she's one of those classic psychotic characters like Norman Bates or Hannibal Lectur.

She was entertaining to read about, but I feel like because this book is told from Paul, the author's POV, it felt like it dragged at times for me. Maybe this is because I read thrillers all the time, it's one of my favorite genres, but this book just didn't really thrill me the way I wanted it to. The story got a lot better towards the end and I really ended up liking the last third of it a lot, but it still isn't my favorite from Stephen King, and I guess I just went into it with too high of expectations.

Pet Semetary remains as my favorite Stephen King novel. This was my buddy read for the month of November with my friends Jacqueline and Zoe!

Jan 20, Blaine rated it it was amazing Shelves: mass-market-paperback , I read this book when it first came out, many years ago. Nurses -- Fiction. American fiction -- 20th century. Mental illness -- Fiction. American fiction. Fans Persons Novelists. American novelists -- Fiction. Horror fiction. User lists with this item 34 Things I Own items by mortner updated about 3 weeks ago.

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Stephen King. Print book : Fiction : English View all editions and formats. Novelists -- Fiction. View all subjects. User tags User lists Similar Items. Paul expects Annie to punish him more harshly than ever but she locks him in her basement with some food, pills and a syringe of Scopalamine while she drives the cop and his crusier to her private cabin higher in the mountains.

When she returns, she fails to notice that Paul has stolen a small can of lighter fluid from near her grill. Paul finishes the book and tells Annie. Prior to his announcement, Paul had made a few small requests: he asked Annie to pick up a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne to celebrate with him and for a single cigarette to smoke and match to light it with -- part of his own tradition when finishing a book.

After Annie brings him the items he'd asked for, he sends her out of the room a final time. Annie falls for the ruse -- Paul had only wanted the single match she gave him. He quickly douses the manuscript with the starter fluid he'd stolen and, while Annie watches horrified, Paul sets the stack of paper ablaze. Predicting correctly that Annie would bend over him to grab the stack of paper and run to douse it in water, Paul lifts the typewriter and brings it down on Annie's head, a blow that fails to kill her outright.

A short battle ensues with Paul able to stand on his broken left leg. When Paul is finally able to pin Annie to the floor, Paul temporarily loses control and grabs the burnt paper and begins to shove it in Annie's mouth, forcing it into her throat. Annie is able to throw Paul off and approaches him, tripping on the typewriter and hitting her head against the bedframe, knocking herself unconscious. Paul is able to leave the room and is found by two cops who'd shown up at Annie's with strong evidence that Paul was there.

They take him to a hospital after gawking briefly at his slightly emaciated body and nearly-hysterical state of mind. He warns them that Annie is still in the bedroom and very dangerous; however when they inspect the room, she's gone. She's found a short time later in her barn, dead of a fracture in her skull and gripping her chainsaw. We find out later that Paul's burning of the stack of paper was a ruse: he'd hidden the actual manuscript under the bed where he was able to retrieve it later.

He returns to New York sporting a prosthetic foot. Sheldon has released Misery's Return, and it is a hit.

His agent wants him to write a non-fiction book on his experiences, but Sheldon refuses, as he is obviously suffering psychological trauma and writer's block from his experiences, and often suffers nightmares and hallucinations of Annie coming to get him for revenge. He believes that if he tries to write a true account, it would end up more fiction than fact.

Paul drinks heavily to deal with his PTSD and the absence of the Novril his doctors weaned him from following the ordeal. One day, while returning from a short shopping trip, he has an odd encounter with a child, a skunk, and a shopping cart, and begins furiously to write about it, having rediscovered his muse.