A Stephen King book worth thousands that may be hiding in your bookcase

Book collecting can be an expensive hobby, but some lucky horror fans may have an out-of-print Stephen King book lurking on their shelves, and it's worth quite a bit of money. Not only that, but the book will likely never be published again, which means the prices will only go up.

The book is Rage, published in 1977 under King's pen name, Richard Bachman, and copies can sell for as much as $4,000 online, depending on factors such as edition and condition. However, this one seems a bit odd if you're not a die-hard King fanatic because it tells the story of a school shooter, and copies of the novel have been found in connection with several school shootings. 1980s and 1990s, resulting in King deliberately allowing it to go out of publication. Although there are many great movies based on banned or controversial booksKing's self-censorship is something else entirely, and that's a good thing that there will never be an adaptation of “Rage”. or more printed copies. This makes existing copies extremely rare and highly collectible, and it's entirely possible that some old-school horror fans have high-value copies tucked away in their attic or on a shelf somewhere.

People who really want to read Rage are going to find ways to do so, but hopefully taking it off sale will help keep more impressionable young minds out there who haven't heard of King's infamous work. I first read it as part of The Bachman Books, also out in the US, which includes Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man, and it's a deeply uncomfortable story that, honestly saying, sympathize a bit with its murderous protagonist. Few of King's other stories deal with real-world horrors, except maybe the novel “Apt Pupil”, which is also extremely disturbing. The Bachman Books are still available now, but Rage is no longer included.

Original edition copies of The Bachman Books are significantly cheaper because so many more were printed, but the most expensive Rage copies are the 1977 first edition mass market paperbacks in good condition. It seems strange to spend thousands of dollars, but Stephen King fans are avid.

It's really unfortunate that school shootings have become so commonplace that there are countless examples of other creative works being changed or taken off the air/shelves as a result of another act of violence. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” because of the Columbine series school shooting in 1999, “Bones” pulled an episode due to the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007and “Stranger Things” had to add a caveat to their season 4 premiere after the Uvalde school shooting in 2022. Since King published Rage in 1977, many things have changed, and tragically, school shootings have increased exponentially.

In a 2013 essay titled “Weapons,” King explained his reasoning that he no longer wants Rage on the shelves, takes responsibility for its potential harm, and acknowledges that the book he wrote as a teenager unfortunately resonated with other struggling teens who have easy access to firearms.” Or is it really that surprising that they would find a soulmate in the fictional Charlie Decker?” he wrote: “But that doesn't mean we excuse them or give them plans to express their views. hatred and fear were dangerous to him. He continued the explanation to get the book out of print, writing:

“My book didn't break (the readers in question) and turn them into murderers. They found something in my book that appealed to them because they were already broken. However, I saw the 'fury' as a possible accelerator, so I took it out of the sale. You don't leave a gas can where a boy with a penchant for campfires can put his hand.

This is similar to director Stanley Kubrick's decision to release A Clockwork Orange until his death. there were concerns about copycat crimes inspired by those made by Malcolm McDowell's character Alex. In both cases, the creators of these stories had reason to believe that their work could cause more harm than the average movie or book, and they did everything they could to prevent that harm. It's impossible to stop people from doing terrible things, and no amount of censorship, self-imposed or otherwise, will change that, but as King said, it's better not to give them the acceleration.