Ben Vincent’s Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences is a brilliant companion to anything Stephen King related.

Although it is ‘complete’ it is concise enough to not be bogged down by theories and speculations. It is a chronological detailing of each of King’s creations, with insight into his influences and state of mind and body at the time. Intermingled with brilliant artwork, photos and engaging interludes and snippets.

It really is a great compilation, that should be on everyone’s coffee table ready for a brief peruse whenever the need arises.

#netgalleyarc I really enjoyed this book. It had a lot of great insights and information about Stephen King. As great as the book was, my favorite part of it was really all of the pictures and anecdotes. This is definitely a great read for any King fan.

This book was a page turner from beginning to end. Beautiful story of Stephen Kings life and history. Loved learning things I did not know and more about this amazing artist. Highly recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Epic Ink Books published "Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences," by Ben Vincent, who also wrote The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, to coincide with Stephen King's 75th birthday on September 21, 2022. It's a chronicle of Stephen King's 50-year writing career, complete with archive images and documents from King's personal collection.

Let me start by saying that I evaluated a digital galley via NetGalley rather than a physical copy. According to what I've heard from other readers, the cover is constructed of high-quality materials yet has the appearance and feel of an old, worn-out paperback. If that doesn't scream Stephen King, I don't know what does.

I'm going to venture a bet and say that most reviews will either give a brief biography of Stephen King or the brevity of his bibliography. That's not what I'm doing. What I will say is that I've been a fan of Stephen King since I first read The Shining in the early 1990s. Even though I was probably a little too young to read adult horror at the time, I became immediately drawn to King's writing style. I then started reading more of his works and viewing both the good and awful movie adaptations.

Call it a biography or a companion volume, but Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences is a must-have for fans of the author. Stephen King's whole creative career is covered by the author, Ben Vincent, from his first "short stories" to his most current book, Fairy Tale. The television and movie adaptations are discussed, including the peculiar Children of the Corn film series.

To summarize, I thoroughly enjoyed Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences. It's a brilliantly written tribute to one of the best horror authors ever.╌★★★★★

This was such a brilliant book. I just couldn't put it down and had to read it all in one sitting. I just loved how the author incorporated so many pictures into the text to create such a fantastic book. I really don't think anything was missed out it was so interesting. It was obvious that this book was so well researched. The book flowed so well bringing together many sources of information to make this incredible read. It was so interesting that I became engrossed from the very start. Stephen King is a big figure in the literary scene and his life makes for a very fascinating book. Especially just how many books he can write in one year and thT the publishers only ever wanted to print 2 a year. It was certainly great learning about his reasons for creating Richard Buchman. I definitely recommend this book if you have ever loved his books.

Only the highest of praise goes out to the author and publishers for bringing us this fascinating story of a great writer that includes his books, life and films. I will definitely will be looking out for more books by this brilliant author. 

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK (amazon uk and kobo will be done on publication day)where found and my blog today https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/stephen-king-by-bev-vincent-quarto-publishing-5-stars either under my name or ladyreading365

I have an unhealthy obsession with Stephen king .I have not a ton from him but whatever I read I loved it .We all agree he is a pure genius and this book gives us a sneak peak in his overworked mind. This man can draw inspiration from anything and everything and turns it into a masterpiece.
I absolutely loved the pictures and reference documents about king's journey in this book. A perfect gift for King's fans. A conversation piece of your coffee table. I read an E Arc provided by netgalley but definitely getting the beautiful book.

This book was everything I wanted it to be. It had me turned pages without even realizing. It was so good!

Brilliant, insightful look at the long career and many books of Stephen King, from a man with a long history of being the closest thing to one of the foremost King scholars.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. What can I say? Stephen King has long been my favorite author. I've had the pleasure of seeing him in person three times, got a 1st edition signed copy of Sleeping Beauties and got to ask a question. Bev Vincent has done a great job following the work of Stephen King and this book is no different. It's nice to see a work by a person I consider an insider to Stephen King's work.

I am not a fan of horror, and from King I have read so far only fantasy (the Dark Tower series), and three more novels, none of them horror. But this account of his works made me want to change that.

For those not very familiar with King's complete oeuvre, such as myself, this was a great book. It covers his entire work, from short stories to novellas, poetry, and novels.

It's not really a resume, it's more of a study; there are interesting bits and pieces about each of his stories, the ideas behind and what inspired them, when were they written, what changes were done upon them until (and how) were they published.

Interwoven between them there are telegrams, letters from fans and editors, books' original covers, pictures from movie adaptations, and other miscellanea.

There are also a few autobiographical facts, covering his childhood, marriage with Tabitha, their struggling years before King was successful, his alcohol and drugs problem afterwards, and also how the car accident changed his life and his work.

The author included some suppositions, which at first I thought they should have been confirmed with King, but later I realized they were added just as a mystery aura to surround him.

I loved the idea of the Dollar Babies, which are movie adaptations based on his stories, whose rights have been sold for one dollar.

We learn how Randall Flagg was born and how and where he made his exit; how King came to write as Richard Bachman; also, how are the books connected through the main two towns, and through characters, and many, many other details.

And I loved the layout of the book; this is a book to read as a hardcopy, the electronic edition doesn't do it justice.

A great book for Stephen King fans

Loads of information and interesting facts

Highly recommend to King fans

A stunning deep dive into the history of literatures most prominent horror author and his decades long career.

I unfortunately had to skip over some sections of this one to avoid spoilers, but it’s still completely evident that any King fan will adore this book!

Insightful, inspirational, intriguing and packed with information — it’ll definitely get you excited to pick up King’s iconic works.

It will however lend itself better to physical print format, as a smaller screen doesn’t give proper justice to the gorgeous images and notes throughout. Definitely considering a hardback purchase soon!

This was so full of great information and history of what is really become the Stephen King phenomenon. Growing up with these stories made this book all that more enlightening.

Beautiful book but so tricky to read on the app. I couldn’t enjoy it as i wanted to due to its format on my iPhone screen.

Thank you for the ARC.

Stephen King
A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences
by Bev Vincent
Pub Date 13 Sep 2022
Quarto Publishing Group – becker & mayer!, becker&mayer!
Biographies & Memoirs | Entertainment | Nonfiction (Adult)




I am reviewing a copy of Stephen King A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences through Quarto Publishings and Netgalley:




This book will allow you to explore the evolution and influences of Stephen King’s body of work over his nearly 50-year career, and discover how the themes of his writing reflect the changing times and events within his life.



Timed for Stephen Kings Seventy fifth birthday on September. 21.2022, Stephen King features archival photos as well as documents from Stephen Kings personal collection, these photos enhance the story behind how his novels, novellas, short stories, and adaptations came to be.




It likely sounds like a tall tale, but it isn’t, once Stephen King the celebrated author helped his young daughter bury her cat in a nearby “pets sematary” after it was killed on a busy roadway. The magic of King comes from his ability to draw on personal experience and mundane life events and then twist them into something horrific. With critically acclaimed titles that have also been turned into blockbuster sensations like The Shining, It, and Carrie, King's work has stood the test of time across decades. This history of the writer's struggles, triumphs, bestsellers, lesser-known stories, collaborations, and more makes the perfect addition to any Stephen King fan’s collection.




I give Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

This was so so interesting to read!! I did skip over a couple of sections on books that I haven’t read or seen the movie adaptations of because a few segments did have spoilers for the books, but that wasn’t an issue as it was only a few sections I had to skip!

This is just a really well put together biography with loads of images of Steve himself, clippings and notes he’s made during his writing process, and loads of interesting facts surrounding the books and the people and places within those books!

I thought I’d just share a few of my favourite facts here:

• When King was a young teen, he was writing on an typewriter that had the letter N missing. So when he submitted a short story for publication at age 13, he hand-wrote all the letter N’s onto the manuscript! (Context: In Misery, Paul Sheldon’s typewriter is missing the letter N and he hand writes them all too.)

• The Overlook Hotel in The Shining was inspired by an overnight stay King had with his wife, which was empty aside from them because it was the night before the hotel closed for the winter. After Tabitha had gone to bed, King wandered around the empty hotel and encountered many of the iconic images we see in the story, including a bartender named Grady and an old claw-foot tub. By the end of the night, King had the story outline mapped out in his head.

• Pet Sematary was based off an actual graveyard King found when they moved to a new house, which was actually signed “Pet Sematary”. When his daughter’s cat was hit by a truck on the road, they buried the cat in this pet cemetery - but thankfully the rest of the book was fiction!

• A lot of the deaths and murders of minor characters in It were based on real events happening in Maine at the time of writing. These included a death caused by an asthma attack, and a child dying in a standpipe.

• The idea for Misery came to King in a dream, which he quickly jotted down on a cocktail napkin when he woke up so he didn’t forget the idea!

I was excited for this. Hopeful to learn new stuff about my favorite author however I felt alot of this was fairly common knowledge and it just felt like an okay read to me

Long a King fan, this well written book explores not only his works but also his life and multiple awards, etc. From reading this book, it is obvious why he is such a loved writer.

This was a fascinating book to read and look through! If you're a fan of horror fiction, horror writing, Stephen King, or read his famous book On Writing, then this is a book you don't want to miss!

Containing more personal stories, background and fascinating never-before-seen photographs from his private collection, this is a must read for any King fan!

A good overview of the man himself! All big King fans should check this out. I knew a lot of the stuff, but it was nice to have it collected.