KING, Stephen. Needful Things: The Last Castle Rock Story. (Signed First Edition)

New York: Viking, 1991. First edition. 8vo. 690pp. Publisher’s quarter black cloth over grey paper-covered boards, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, author’s initials and device in gilt to upper board, in the original pictorial dust jacket. Jacket with some rubbing and creasing along the upper edge and corners, slight shelf wear; binding and contents otherwise very good.

Signed by Stephen King in a large, bold hand on the half-title.

First edition of one of King’s major Castle Rock novels, published by Viking in 1991. The story centres on the mysterious Leland Gaunt and his newly opened shop, Needful Things, where the inhabitants of Castle Rock discover objects answering their deepest desires, apparently available for remarkably modest prices. Each purchase, however, carries an increasingly sinister obligation, allowing Gaunt to exploit the jealousies, grudges and weaknesses of the townspeople with devastating consequences.

Subtitled The Last Castle Rock Story, the novel brought together characters, locations and references developed across King’s earlier fiction and was conceived as a culmination of his fictional Maine town. A substantial and particularly desirable signed first edition of one of the defining novels of King’s extraordinarily successful career.

[WR]