KING, Stephen.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Carrie. Advance copy of King's first novel, described on the rear wrapper as "special edition not for sale." The blurb elaborates on this advance edition: "once in a while a novel and a novelist of such great promise come along that special measures seem necessary to deal with it."King's debut novel sold four million copies and was adapted into the 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek all within two years of publication. Originally intended as a short story for Cavalier magazine, Carrie was famously written by King on a portable typewriter that belonged to his wife, Tabitha, while he was living in a trailer park and working full-time as a schoolteacher. King tossed away the first pages of the manuscript, but Tabitha retrieved them and convinced him to expand the story into a novel. It proved overwhelmingly successful among the public and critics, praised as "a drama of the occult [that] goes far beyond the usual limitations of the genre to become a truly perceptive study of thoughtless human cruelty" (Schedl).The gutter code 050 in the contents suggests a December 1973 printing. There was also an uncorrected proof issued in green wrappers, although with a later gutter code, and also a New English Library uncorrected proof issued in beige wrappers.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.