Richard Bachman

Author profile

born

September 21, 1941

gender

male

website

http://www.stephenking.com

About this author

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This is a Stephen King pseudonym.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen'...more This is a Stephen King pseudonym.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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Books by Richard Bachman

Average rating: 3.62 · 131,795 ratings · 3,564 reviews · 13 distinct works

	The Bachman Books by Richard Bachman, Stephen King 3.95 avg rating — 15,525 ratings — published 1977 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Thinner: Tie-In by Stephen King, Richard Bachman 3.43 avg rating — 41,077 ratings — published 1984 — 57 editions	My rating:
	The Regulators by Stephen King, Richard Bachman 3.42 avg rating — 18,197 ratings — published 1996 — 51 editions	My rating:
	The Running Man by Stephen King, Richard Bachman (Pseudonym) 3.63 avg rating — 18,283 ratings — published 1982 — 53 editions	My rating:
	Blaze by Stephen King, Richard Bachman (Pseudonym) 3.38 avg rating — 7,880 ratings — published 2007 — 41 editions	My rating:
	The Long Walk by Stephen King, Richard Bachman 4.04 avg rating — 20,428 ratings — published 1979 — 44 editions	My rating:
	Rage by Stephen King, Richard Bachman (Pseudonym) 3.69 avg rating — 4,910 ratings — published 1977 — 19 editions	My rating:
	Roadwork by Stephen King, Richard Bachman (Pseudonym) 3.41 avg rating — 5,326 ratings — published 1981 — 32 editions	My rating:
	Desperation / The Regulators: Box Set by Stephen King, Richard Bachman 3.92 avg rating — 790 ratings — published 1996 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Todesmarsch / Amok by Stephen King, Richard Bachman (Pseudonym), Nora Jensen (Translator) 4.00 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1992 — 2 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Richard Bachman

“Then you can blame it on your parents,' I said, smiling. 'Won't that be a relief?”
― Richard Bachman, Rage

tags: charlie , decker , jones , rage , stephen-king , taunt , ted

6 people liked it

“Now the only way out is straight up to Heaven.”
― Richard Bachman

5 people liked it

“Craziness is only a matter of degree, and there are lots of people besides me who have the urge to roll heads. They go to stock-car races and the horror movies and the wrestling matches they have in Portland Expo. Maybe what she said smacked of all those things, but I admired her for saying out loud, all the same--the price of honesty is always high. She had an admirable grasp of the fundamentals. Besides, she was tiny and pretty.”
― Richard Bachman, Rage

tags: bachman , charlie , decker , grace , king , rage , richard , stanner , stephen

4 people liked it

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Romance Readers R...: November Monthly Challenge: Participants' Lists Thread	294	276	Dec 02, 2009 04:32am

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