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Richard Bachman's author photo.
Richard Bachman is a pen name for Stephen King, considered by many to be the master of the horror genre. After publishing many wildly successful novels under his own name, King wanted to know if some of his early works (those written before Carrie) would sell without having his name on them. He also worried that many of the non-horror novels he wanted to write would clash with the expectations of his fans. So he convinced his publisher, Signet Books, to print these novels under a pseudonym. But King fell prey to hubris when he dedicated all of Bachman's books to people close to him and worked in obscure references to his own identity. When fans picked up on these clues, not to mention the similarity between the two authors' literary styles, horror fans' and retailers' suspicions were aroused. King always denied any connection to Bachman. But when a persistent bookstore clerk located publisher's records at the Library of Congress naming King as the author of one of Bachman's novels the link was undeniable. The original editions of the early Bachman books are among the most sought after original paperbacks, with resale prices in the thousands of dollars.
By the time of Bachman's "death" (supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym"), King was working on Misery which he had planned to release as a Bachman book.
In the mid-1990s, The Regulators came out, with the publishers claiming it was found among Bachman's leftover papers by his widow. It is obvious from the book that it was really written by King. There is a picture of a young King on the inside back cover. King has said that there may be another Bachman novel left to be "found".
There have been numerous biographies of the "late Richard Bachman" telling of a complete life separate to that of King, leading some at the time to believe that the name was not a pseudonym for King.
But King has since taken full ownership of the Bachman name on numerous occasions, such as in the introduction to The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King entitled "Why I Was Bachman."
King also used the "relationship" between him and Bachman as a concept in his book The Dark Half, a story in which a writer's darker pseudonym takes on a life of its own. King dedicated The Dark Half to "the deceased Richard Bachman".
Bibliography
The first four of these were republished as The Bachman Books in 1985. Bachman slowly built up a readership despite being published in original paperbacks. Thinner was published in hardback and sold 28,000 copies before it became widely known that the author was really Stephen King and sales went up tenfold.
After the Columbine High School massacre, King announced that he would allow Rage to go out of print, fearing that it might inspire similar tragedies.
See also
