575 - Stephen King Book - The Dark Man (Deluxe Ltd. Ed. #240/550)

Stephen King Book - The Dark Man (Deluxe Ltd. Ed. #240/550) Signed book: The Dark Man. Deluxe traycased limited edition, numbered 240/550. Baltimore, Maryland: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2013. Hardcover with traycase, 8.75 x 5.75. Signed on the colophon in ink by Stephen King and by the book's illustrator, Glenn Chadbourne. Includes the deluxe limited edition “Artwork Portfolio” for The Dark Man, presented in a two-slipcase system with two limitation certificates (Nos. 244 and 246), which are both signed by Chadbourne. In overall fine condition. Written while Stephen King was a junior or senior in college, The Dark Man originated as a poem he composed on the back of a placemat in a college restaurant after imagining a mysterious, faceless wanderer in cowboy boots, jeans, and a denim jacket. The poem was first published in the University of Maine literary magazine Ubris in 1969, and its sinister wandering figure became the genesis of Randall Flagg, the recurring villain later central to The Stand and other works in King’s fictional universe. More than four decades later, Cemetery Dance Publications issued the poem in book form in 2013, pairing King’s early text with more than 70 full-page illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne.