The Stephen King Book Worth Thousands That May Be Hiding In Your Bookcase

Book collecting can be an expensive hobby to get into, but some lucky horror fans might secretly have an out-of-print Stephen King book on their shelves that’s worth a fair bit of money. Not only that, but the book is likely to never go back into print, which means prices will only go up. 

The book is “Rage,” published in 1977 under King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman, and copies online can sell for as much as $4,000 USD, depending on a couple of factors like edition and condition. This one feels a little weird to go out of your way to collect unless you’re a die-hard King fanatic, however, as it tells the story of a school shooter and copies of the novel were found connected to several school shootings in the 1980s and 1990s, leading King to intentionally allow it to go out of publication. Though there are many great movies based on banned or controversial books, King’s self-censorship is something different entirely and it’s a good thing that there will never be a movie adaptation of “Rage” or more copies printed. It does make the existing copies extra-rare and extra-collectible, and it’s entirely possible that some old-school horror novel fans have high-value copies packed 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 removing it from sale hopefully helps keep it from more impressionable young minds who haven’t already heard of King’s most infamous work. I first read it as part of the also out-of-print U.S. edition of “The Bachman Books,” which contains “Rage,” “The Long Walk,” “Roadwork,” and “The Running Man,” and it’s a deeply discomforting story that honestly sympathizes a bit too much with its killer protagonist. Few other King stories come close in their dealings with real-world horrors except maybe the novella “Apt Pupil,” which is also exceptionally disturbing. “The Bachman Books” are still available now, but “Rage” is no longer included.

Copies of the original run of “The Bachman Books” are significantly cheaper because so many more were printed, but the most expensive copies of “Rage” are 1977 first-edition mass-market paperbacks in good condition. It seems like an odd thing to spend thousands of dollars on, but hey, Stephen King fans are intense. 

What’s really unfortunate is that school shootings have become so commonplace that there are numerous examples of other creative works being changed or pulled from air/shelves in the wake of yet another act of violence. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” shelved episodes because of the Columbine school shooting in 1999, “Bones” pulled an episode because of the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, and “Stranger Things” had to add a warning to their season 4 premiere following the Uvalde school shooting in 2022. Many things have changed since King published “Rage” in 1977, and tragically, school shootings have increased exponentially.

In a 2013 essay called “Guns,” King explained his reasoning for no longer wanting “Rage” on shelves, taking responsibility for its potential for harm and acknowledging that a book he wrote as a teenager, unfortunately, resonated with other struggling teenagers, but ones with easy access to firearms.”Is it really so surprising that they would find a soul brother in the fictional Charlie Decker?,” he wrote, “But that doesn’t mean we excuse them or give them blueprints to express their hate and fear. Charlie had to go. He was dangerous. And in more ways than one.” He continued his explanation to let the book fall out of print by writing:

“My book did not break [the readers in question], or turn them into killers. They found something in my book that spoke to them because they were already broken. Yet I did see ‘Rage’ as a possible accelerant, which is why I pulled it from sale. You don’t leave a can of gasoline where a boy with firebug tendencies can lay hands on it.”

It’s similar to the decision made by director Stanley Kubrick to pull “A Clockwork Orange” from release until his death, as there were concerns about copycat crimes inspired by the ones committed by Malcolm McDowell’s character Alex. In both cases, the creatives behind these stories had reason to believe that their work had more potential to do harm than the average movie or book, and they did their best to negate 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 like King said, it’s best not to give them accelerant.