1st Edition Stephen King Books Worth Thousands That Could Be Hiding In Your Bookcase

Since the publication of “Carrie” in 1974, Stephen King has knocked out over 60 books (which have been turned into 59 movies). That’s better than a book-per-year pace, which is doubly impressive considering that he’s still, at the age of 77, the United States’ most prominent author of fiction. Every book isn’t necessarily a winner, but he delivers the spine-tingling goods frequently enough to keep his massive fanbase happy.

Though he’s still regularly acquiring new fans thanks in large part to the timelessness of novels like “The Shining,” “It,” and “Pet Sematary,” his longtime readers are, in some cases, more than just fans. They’re collectors. And they guard their early purchases fiercely due to a combination of sentimental value and actual monetary value — because depending on how early you started buying King’s books, you might have some immensely valuable volumes resting on your shelf or stashed away in storage. How valuable? A signed 1st edition of “Carrie” that wasn’t even in mint condition recently sold on eBay for $8,200.

While that particular book got a boost in worth from bearing King’s signature, unsigned 1st editions can go for well over $1,000, too. Now that I’ve got your attention, let me clarify that the following list is based on recent eBay sales. It’s possible you could get more or less depending on where you’re selling or who you’re selling to. With that caveat noted, let’s take a look at some 1st edition King books (unsigned and not initially released as limited editions) that could fetch you some serious coin.

King’s classic about a victimized teenage girl who dishes out telekinetic vengeance on her high school bullies is as terrifyingly relevant as it was when it first appeared 51 years ago. Brian De Palma turned it into a classic horror film in 1976, while other filmmakers have struggled to make the material work as a sequel or a remake (though Kimberly Peirce gave it a noble effort in 2013). Judging from the aforementioned completed sale on eBay, I’ve got a feeling that a signed, near-mint 1st edition could go for over $10,000. Meanwhile, a worn, unsigned 1st edition recently went for $1,625.

King’s second novel is a stone-cold classic of a vampire yarn that has yet to yield the truly great film and/or miniseries adaptation it deserves (though Tobe Hooper at least conjured up some nightmarish imagery in his 1979 two-parter for CBS). It’s quite possible that the plot of “Salem’s Lot” is better suited to the page – and if that page happens to bear the term “First Edition,” a near-mint quality copy could net you somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000.

“Rage” is the first novel Stephen King published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, and it is easily the most controversial tale he’s ever put to paper. The plot centers on a disturbed high school senior who shoots his algebra teacher and takes the rest of the class hostage. When a copy of Bachman’s book was found in the locker of a West Paducah, Kentucky high school student after he shot three of his classmates in 1997, King allowed the novel to go out of print. If you own a standalone paperback copy of “Rage” in at least very good condition, it could fetch around $4,000. If you have it in hardcover as part of “The Bachman Books” collection, you could be looking at close to a $2,000 sale.

Stephen King’s masterful, genre-bending work of fantasy, horror, and Westerns, which stretches out over multiple books, is considered by many of the author’s fans to be his finest achievement — so please don’t hold the misbegotten 2017 film by Nikolaj Arcel against it. If you are fortunate enough to own a rare collection of 1st editions of seven novels stretching from “The Gunslinger” to “The Dark Tower,” you could unload it for $3,600. If you just have a 1982 1st edition of “The Gunslinger” in mint condition, that could go for over $2,000.

King’s masterpiece of post-apocalyptic horror-fantasy is more poorly suited to live-action adaptation than “‘Salem’s Lot” or “The Dark Tower” saga — at least, that’s how it looks after we’ve received two deeply flawed miniseries takes on the material. It’s a dense novel that likely takes up a ton of space on your bookshelf if you’ve got a hardcover copy of the unabridged version, but the most valuable one is the shorter, hardcopy 1st edition published in 1978. If you’ve got it sitting around in very good condition, you could realistically sell it for $3,000.

King’s first published collection of short stories is still his best (as well as an ideal introduction to the author for advanced young readers – at least, it was for me). It’s a book that’s best read as a beat-up paperback (with terse and varied tales like “Quitters, Inc.,” “Trucks,” and “The Lawnmower Man” flipping by with macabre joy), but if you’ve got a first edition hardcover that you’ve lightly or never read, one of those recently sold for $1,881.

Arguably King’s most famous novel, if only because of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson (which the author hated), it was published the year after the release of De Palma’s “Carrie,” so you’d think there would be numerous first editions out in the wild. Evidently, they’re scarce enough that a copy in very good condition can sell for $1,600.

Subtitled “A Novel of the First Energy Crisis,” this is King’s third go-round under the Bachman pseudonym. King says he wrote this thriller as a means of coping with the death of his mother, and, for a time, expressed some disappointment with it (to the point where he almost kiboshed the reprint). He’s now a fan of the book, which was nearly made six years ago by director Pablo Trapero and the “It” duo of Andy and Barbara Muschietti (as producers). The book didn’t get much of a push when it hit bookshelves as a standalone release in 1981, so if you’re lucky enough to have snatched it up back then and took good care of it, you could sell it for $1,300.