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In 1973 Stephen King was teaching English at a high school in Hampden, Maine, and writing in the laundry room of the family’s trailer. He had thrown the first pages of a story about a bullied girl with telekinetic powers into the bin; his wife Tabitha took them out and told him to keep going. Doubleday published Carrie in April 1974, the paperback rights sold for 400,000 dollars, and the paperback sold a million copies in its first year. Fifty years later King has published more than sixty novels, about a dozen story collections and a book on how he writes, with sales of more than 400 million copies. This guide covers his 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1974–2022 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Stephen King’s best-known books are The Shining (1977), Carrie (1974), The Stand (1978), It (1986), Misery (1987) and The Green Mile (1996). Start with The Shining. Below are his 14 key books in order, the Dark Tower series order, and the rest of his work grouped by kind.
Where to Start with Stephen King
If you want classic King horror
→ The Shining (1977) — one family, one snowbound hotel.
If you want his big, sprawling epic
→ The Stand (1978) — the end of the world and what comes after.
If you want King without the supernatural
→ Different Seasons (1982) — the four novellas behind Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption.
If you want to know how he writes
→ On Writing (2000) — part memoir, part writing manual.
14 Stephen King Books, in Order
Carrie
His first published novel: Carrie White, a bullied teenager with a fanatically religious mother, discovers she has telekinetic powers, and the senior prom ends in catastrophe. It is told partly through documents, reports and testimony written after the event. Brian De Palma filmed it in 1976.
’Salem’s Lot
The writer Ben Mears returns to the small Maine town of Jerusalem’s Lot, where he spent part of his childhood, just as a vampire starts turning its residents one by one. It was filmed for television in 1979.
The Shining
Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic and struggling writer, takes a job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies, with his wife Wendy and their five-year-old son Danny, who has psychic gifts. Snowed in, Jack falls under the hotel’s influence. The idea came from a night King and Tabitha spent at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park in October 1974. Stanley Kubrick filmed it in 1980; King has said he dislikes the film. A sequel, Doctor Sleep, followed in 2013.
The Stand
A weaponised flu virus escapes from a military laboratory and kills most of the world’s population. The survivors are drawn towards two camps, one gathered around the elderly Mother Abagail in Boulder, the other around Randall Flagg in Las Vegas. King published a longer “complete and uncut” edition in 1990.
The Gunslinger
The first of the eight Dark Tower books: Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger of a world that has “moved on”, pursues the man in black across a desert on his way to the Tower at the centre of all worlds. Many of King’s other novels link back to this series.
Different Seasons
Four novellas, mostly without the supernatural: “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, “Apt Pupil”, “The Body” and “The Breathing Method”. Three became films: Stand by Me (1986), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Apt Pupil (1998).
Pet Sematary
Louis Creed, a doctor, moves his family to rural Maine and learns from his elderly neighbour about a burial ground in the woods behind the children’s pet cemetery, where what is buried comes back. It is a novel about grief, and one King has said he hesitated to publish. It was filmed in 1989 and again in 2019.
It
Seven children in Derry, Maine, the Losers’ Club, fight a shape-shifting creature that most often appears as Pennywise the clown, first in 1958 and again as adults in 1985. At over a thousand pages it is one of his longest books. The 2017 film is, per Guinness World Records, the highest-grossing horror film at the global box office.
Misery
The novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued from a car crash in the snow by Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who calls herself his number one fan, and who is furious to find he has killed off her favourite character. Misery shared the first Bram Stoker Award for best novel. Kathy Bates won an Oscar for playing Annie in the 1990 film.
The Green Mile
Published in six monthly paperback instalments from March to August 1996. In 1932 Paul Edgecombe supervises death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary, where John Coffey, a huge man convicted of murdering two girls, turns out to have a gift for healing. Frank Darabont filmed it in 1999 with Tom Hanks.
On Writing
Half memoir, half writing manual: his childhood, the years of rejection slips, his addiction and recovery, then plain advice on vocabulary, grammar and revision. He finished it after a van hit him while he was walking along Route 5 in Maine in June 1999, and the book ends with the accident.
11/22/63
Jake Epping, a divorced English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, is shown a portal in a diner storeroom that leads to 1958, and sets out to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller and became a Hulu series in 2016.
Mr. Mercedes
A man drives a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of job seekers and kills eight people. Months later the retired detective Bill Hodges receives a taunting letter from the killer and starts his own investigation, helped by Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney. It won the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Novel and opens the Bill Hodges trilogy.
Fairy Tale
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Reade befriends a reclusive old man, Mr. Bowditch, and his dog Radar, and inherits a secret: a passage in a shed behind the house that leads to another world. A long, old-fashioned quest story that draws on fairy tales and on his own fantasy books.
In What Order to Read Stephen King
Most King novels stand alone, so you can read them in any order. Many are linked, though: towns like Derry and Castle Rock recur, characters cross between books, and many novels connect to the Dark Tower. A few books are true sequels. Read The Shining before Doctor Sleep (2013), and The Talisman (1984) before Black House (2001) and Other Worlds Than These (2026), all three written with Peter Straub.
The Dark Tower runs The Gunslinger (1982), The Drawing of the Three (1987), The Waste Lands (1991), Wizard and Glass (1997), Wolves of the Calla (2003), Song of Susannah (2004) and The Dark Tower (2004). The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) fits between books four and five. The Bill Hodges trilogy is Mr. Mercedes (2014), Finders Keepers (2015) and End of Watch (2016). Holly Gibney comes back in The Outsider (2018), Holly (2023) and Never Flinch (2025).
A reading path
1. The Shining (1977)
2. Different Seasons (1982)
3. The Stand (1978)
4. It (1986)
5. 11/22/63 (2011)
6. On Writing (2000)
Everything Else Stephen King Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 68 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other novels
34
34 books · 1979–2025
- 1979The Dead Zonea man wakes from a coma able to see the future
- 1980Firestartera girl with pyrokinetic powers on the run from a government agency
- 1981Cujoa rabid St. Bernard traps a mother and son in a car
- 1983Christinea possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury
- 1984The Eyes of the Dragona fantasy first written for his daughter
- 1987The Tommyknockerssomething buried in the Maine woods
- 1989The Dark Halfa writer’s pseudonym comes to life
- 1991Needful Thingsa new shop in Castle Rock
- 1992Gerald’s Gamea woman handcuffed to a bed in a remote house
- 1992Dolores Claibornea Maine housekeeper’s confession
- 1994Insomnia
- 1995Rose Madder
- 1996Desperationtwin novel of The Regulators
- 1998Bag of BonesBram Stoker Award
- 1999The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
- 2001Dreamcatcherhis first novel after the 1999 accident
- 2002From a Buick 8
- 2005The Colorado Kid
- 2006Cell
- 2006Lisey’s Story
- 2008Duma Key
- 2009Under the Dome
- 2013Joyland
- 2013Doctor Sleepsequel to The Shining
- 2014Revival
- 2015Finders KeepersBill Hodges trilogy, book two
- 2016End of WatchBill Hodges trilogy, book three
- 2018The Outsider
- 2018Elevationshort novel
- 2019The Institute
- 2021Later
- 2021Billy Summers
- 2023HollyHolly Gibney
- 2025Never FlinchHolly Gibney
The Dark Tower series (books II–VII and 4.5)
7
7 books · 1987–2012
- 1987The Drawing of the Threebook II
- 1991The Waste Landsbook III
- 1997Wizard and Glassbook IV
- 2003Wolves of the Callabook V
- 2004Song of Susannahbook VI
- 2004The Dark Towerbook VII
- 2012The Wind Through the Keyholeset between books IV and V
As Richard Bachman
7
7 books · 1977–2007
- 1977Rageout of print at King’s request
- 1979The Long Walk
- 1981Roadwork
- 1982The Running Man
- 1984Thinner
- 1996The Regulatorstwin novel of Desperation
- 2007Blaze
Co-written books and novellas
7
7 books · 1983–2026
- 1983Cycle of the Werewolfillustrated novella
- 1984The Talismanwith Peter Straub
- 2001Black Housewith Peter Straub
- 2017Sleeping Beautieswith Owen King
- 2017Gwendy’s Button Boxwith Richard Chizmar
- 2022Gwendy’s Final Taskwith Richard Chizmar
- 2026Other Worlds Than Thesewith Peter Straub; the third Talisman novel
Story collections
11
11 books · 1978–2024
- 1978Night Shift
- 1985Skeleton Crew
- 1990Four Past Midnightfour novellas
- 1993Nightmares & Dreamscapes
- 1999Hearts in Atlantislinked stories
- 2002Everything’s Eventual
- 2008Just After Sunset
- 2010Full Dark, No Starsfour novellas
- 2015The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
- 2020If It Bleedsfour novellas
- 2024You Like It Darker
Nonfiction
2
2 books · 1981–2004
- 1981Danse Macabreon horror in fiction and film
- 2004Faithfulwith Stewart O’Nan, on the Red Sox’s 2004 season
The years · 1947–2026
Quick facts about Stephen King
- Known for
- Horror and suspense set mostly in small-town Maine, which has made him one of the best-selling and most-adapted novelists of his time.
- 1947
- Born in Portland, Maine
- 1974
- Carrie, his first novel
- 1986
- It
- 1999
- Hit by a van while walking in Maine
- 2003
- National Book Foundation medal
- 2026
- Other Worlds Than These, with Peter Straub
- Born
- 21 September 1947, Portland, Maine
- Education
- University of Maine
- Married
- The novelist Tabitha King (née Spruce), in 1971
- Pseudonym
- Richard Bachman, revealed in 1985
- Honours
- National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (2003); National Medal of Arts (2014)
- Sales
- More than 400 million copies
The red mark is 1986: It, his novel about the Losers’ Club and Pennywise in Derry, Maine.
How Stephen King Writes: Ordinary People, Then the Strange
King starts with ordinary life in close detail: brand names, local speech, money worries, the inside of a family. Most of his books are set in small Maine towns, real or invented, like Derry and Castle Rock. Something strange arrives only after he has made that world feel familiar. In On Writing he says he does not plot in advance. He puts characters in a situation and writes to find out what happens.
He writes long, and he writes every day; in On Writing he puts his target at 2,000 words a day. His own advice is plain: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” He often uses documents, letters and interviews, as in Carrie, and he moves freely between points of view, including children and villains.
Horror is only part of his work. Different Seasons, The Green Mile and 11/22/63 have little or no supernatural element, and the Hodges books are straight crime novels. Fear in his books mostly comes from people: addiction, abuse and grief, which often weigh more than the monsters.
Watch
An evening with Stephen King at UMass Lowell
For one night in December 2012 King took the stage at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell to talk about his books, his writing day and the stories behind them, a rare chance to hear him at length in his own words. Recorded and published by UMass Lowell.
Frequently asked questions about Stephen King’s books
How many books has Stephen King written?
This page lists 82 books. That is 14 key books plus 68 more in the bibliography: other novels, the rest of the Dark Tower series, books as Richard Bachman, co-written books, eleven more story collections and two works of nonfiction. More than sixty of them are novels.
What are Stephen King’s books in order?
His key books in order: Carrie (1974), ’Salem’s Lot (1975), The Shining (1977), The Stand (1978), The Gunslinger (1982), Different Seasons (1982), Pet Sematary (1983), It (1986), Misery (1987), The Green Mile (1996), On Writing (2000), 11/22/63 (2011), Mr. Mercedes (2014) and Fairy Tale (2022). The full list is in the bibliography further down.
What is the Dark Tower reading order?
The Gunslinger (1982), The Drawing of the Three (1987), The Waste Lands (1991), Wizard and Glass (1997), Wolves of the Calla (2003), Song of Susannah (2004) and The Dark Tower (2004). The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) is set between books four and five and can be read there or at the end.
Where should I start with Stephen King?
The Shining is a good start: it is classic King horror in one place with one family. If you would rather avoid the supernatural, start with the novellas in Different Seasons or with The Green Mile.
What is Stephen King’s most famous book?
It and The Shining are probably his most famous, helped by their films; The Stand is often named by readers as his best. The 2017 film of It is the highest-grossing horror film at the global box office, according to Guinness World Records.
Who is Richard Bachman?
A pseudonym King used for Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984). In 1985 Steve Brown, a bookstore clerk in Washington, D.C., showed that Bachman was King. Later Bachman books were The Regulators (1996) and Blaze (2007).
Why is Stephen King’s Rage out of print?
Rage (1977), published as Richard Bachman, is about a student who shoots two teachers and holds his class hostage. After the December 1997 shooting at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, where the shooter had a copy of the book in his locker, King asked his publisher to take it out of print. In 2013, after the Sandy Hook shooting, he explained the decision in an essay called “Guns”.
Which Stephen King books have been made into films?
Most of the key books on this page, among others. Examples include Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), Stand by Me (1986, from “The Body”), Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999) and It (2017).
What happened to Stephen King in 1999?
On 19 June 1999 a van hit him while he was walking along Route 5 in Maine. He suffered a collapsed lung, multiple fractures to his right leg, a broken hip and a head wound. He describes the accident and his recovery at the end of On Writing (2000).
Is Stephen King still alive?
Yes. He was born on 21 September 1947 in Portland, Maine, and is still publishing: Never Flinch came out in 2025, and Other Worlds Than These, the third Talisman novel, written with material left by Peter Straub, came out in October 2026.
Footnotes
- Stephen King — Wikipedia
- Stephen King bibliography — Wikipedia
- Rage (King novel) — Wikipedia
- Excerpt: On Writing — NPR
- Highest-grossing horror film — Guinness World Records
- Other Worlds Than These — Simon & Schuster
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
— Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
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