Missing Pieces
The message is simple: you can learn, you can get better, and you can get published.
Stephen King, introduction to The Glass Floor
In Bag of Bones, the main character Mike Noonan is an author who buys himself a little time to deal with his writer’s block by publishing a couple extra books he had locked away in his trunk. Due to King’s prolific output, there are many fans who hope that King similarly has a novel or three stashed away for similar circumstances, or even to come out after his death.
I’m not so sure. I think if King writes it, it goes out, and there’s very little left in the trunk worth publishing. His collection, Nightmares & Dreamscapes was intended as a way for him to clear the decks of older unpublished stories, and besides the occasional gem dug up from his past King has generally kept his novels and collections purely new material.
There’s a long and interesting Wikipedia article that catalogues many of his unpublished stories. Some stories won’t be published, as they were folded into other books or expanded into novels (e.g. Memory became Duma Key, The Revelations of Becka Paulson was folded into The Tommyknockers as a subplot). Others King eventually revisited and actually published (Blaze was a trunk novel, and Under the Dome started off as a comedy called The Cannibals). The longest unpublished piece looks to be something called Sword in Darkness: King thinks it is unpublishable and won’t release to the public. Much of his papers containing these unpublished are stored in the University of Maine, but there are some obscure pieces of work that can be found online, if you were to search for the right archive.
But should you? If you’re a King completionist, then the answer is obvious, but the stories I have read were uncollected generally for good reason: unfinished, juvenilia, or just not very good – sometimes all three at once. Only really The Glass Floor, Squad D, and Before the Play really should see a wider audience, the Before the Play mostly as an entertaining extra. Maybe The Reploids at a stretch (though I admittedly did enjoy the very short stories from his youth).
Do not think the following as a complete list. There may come a time when other stories are released or discovered, so this has a chance to grow in the future. But for the time being, here are the stories I’ve managed to track down.
Jhonathan and the Witchs (1956/7)
A summary can be found here. Perhaps King’s earliest story we have record of, just one page of manuscript that tells the story of Jhonathan being granted three wishes which he uses to kill three witches. It is very King in terms of the story and humour, but fairly obviously the work of a child: he would have only been around nine when it was written! From a teacher perspective, it’s a nifty little tale with a sense of humour, but lacks description to really bring it to life.
Was published in First Words: Earliest Writings from Favorite Contemporary Authors, edited by Paul Mandelbaum, but not in any King collection.
People, Places and Things (1960)
Actually King’s first collection, with one-page stories from him and a friend called Chris Chelsey. He sold them to his friends for $0.10 to $0.25 each. They are absolutely juvenilia, and you can see King’s influences from Bradbury and EC Comics, but for flash fiction these are quite fun. The stories contained were:
- A foreword from King (lost).
- The Hotel at the End of the Road – two bad guys find refuge in a hotel, only to become drugged and living exhibits in the hotel. Twist very reminiscent of Roald Dahl’s The Landlady. Summary here.
- Genius, Top Forty News, Weather and Sports, and Bloody Child by Chris Chelsey.
- I’ve Got to Get Away! – a very Bradbury type story where someone goes mad on an assembly line, only for it be revealed they were a robot the whole time. Good twist though. Summary here.
- The Dimension Warp – listed in the credits, but now lost.
- The Thing at the Bottom of the Well – A horrid child who tortures animals is reneged upon by something in the well. In it brief span, delivers a fun twist in its own nasty way.
- Reward by Chris Chelsey
- The Stranger – A man did a bad thing, and the devil claims him in a whiff of brimstone. To call it slight suggests the others are more weighty, but by comparison it is very slight.
- A Most Unusual Thing, Gone, They’ve Come by Chris Chelsey
- I’m Falling – listed, but now lost.
- The Cursed Expedition – Astronauts land on Venus, only for it to devour them one at a time. Big idea, executed as well as could be done so for his age.
- The Other Side of the Fog – A young kid gets lost in the fog that deposits him in different times. Lacks an ending really, but would be an effective camp fire story.
- Scared and Curiosity Kills the Cat by Chris Chelsey
- Never Look Behind You by Chris Chelsey and Stephen King. King’s first collaboration, which has a a nasty man die in a nasty way for no readily apparent reason.
There is something to be said for these as mildly fun snack-size stories. I’d rather see these published than some of the other stories below.
In a Half-World of Terror (1965)
A summary can be found here. King’s first published story at the age of 17, albeit unpaid, originally titled I was a Teenage Grave Robber. Though the other stories so far have shown a grim flair, they were absolutely imitations of what King was reading at the time. This is the first story where there are flashes of the writer King would become. Not often, but you get a sense of King’s burgeoning style. It is however, deathly dull.
The Glass Floor (1967)
A summary can be found here. King’s first published story for which he was paid the handsome sum of $35. It was published in Startling Mystery Stories, but was published in a couple places afterwards, with minor alterations, in 1990’s Weird Tales (the version I read), Cemetery Dance in 2012 and Best of Cemetery Dance 2 in 2020.
It’s a bit raw, but this is the first story that feels like a King story in terms of style. The story is a bit derivative, but not badly told either and the ending has the power to be genuinely chilling.
Slade (1970)
A summary can be found here. An interesting example of King’s early writing in that the titular Slade seems like an early prototype of Roland’s gunslinger. Yet despite this, it almost reads as a parody of Western stories, with everyone dropping letters like there was a sale at the apostrophe store. Somehow, this feels more juvenile than The Glass Floor before it, and the comedy of the piece doesn’t really land. Stick with Roland.
The Blue Air Compressor (1971, revised 1981)
A summary can be found here. Another silly story from King, this time indulging in the fat shaming that appeared fairly often in the early third of his writing. In fact, this goes further than even something like Thinner in its description of an overweight character, though in typical EC Comics style the main character is hardly likeable either.
Squad D (late 1970s)
A summary can be found here. A very interesting one, and impossible to date. It was published in an anthology by Cemetery Dance in 2019, but was originally intended for Harlan Ellison’s legendary anthology The Last Dangerous Visions. It is legendary, in that work began on the anthology in 1973 and Harlan never completed work upon it. It is apparently set to be published later this year.
There’s a melancholy air to the story, and early attempt from King to deal with the legacy of Vietnam, which he does more fully in Hearts in Atlantis. Ellison reportedly thought the story wasn’t quite ready, but I think it’s more a case of it doesn’t feel in tune with what you may expect from King, more similar in tone to something like The Last Rung on the Ladder or The Woman in the Room, though with a slight touch of the supernatural about it.
Before the Play and After the Play (1977)
This is a prologue to The Shining, giving snapshot views into the history of the Overlook. Though published a couple of times, including in a special edition of The Shining from Cemetery Dance, this has never been formally collected nor easy to track down. It is entertaining to read, but was wisely deleted I think from the novel proper. It just gives away too much too early about the Overlook. However, it’s a fun addition in the same way Jerusalem’s Lot and One for the Road are companions to ‘Salem’s Lot, and worth tracking down should you want more after the fun of The Shining.
The epilogue takes on the same form as Carrie, in that it is almost a collage of different news stories subsequent to the Overlook burning down. I hadn’t been able to track it down for a long while, until this Reddit post came out of the blue. Reading it fills a couple gaps for characters, especially in light of Doctor Sleep, but is superfluous when compared to the ending/epilogue the book currently has.
The King Family & The Wicked Witch (1977)
Written to entertain the King family children (then just Naomi and Joe, though Owen was on the way), it tells the story of how Witch Hazel turns Stephen’s nose into a banana, Tabitha’s hands in milk bottles, and Naomi and Joe to cry endlessly. They are cured by a Prince, and then send the witch farting to the moon. A bit of harmless fluff, only really meant as a bit of fun for the family.
The Night of the Tiger (1978)
A summary can be found here. Originally written in the 1960s, but revised publication for publication in 1978. The story itself betrays its earlier written origins, and it feels very Ray Bradbury with a King polish.
Man with a Belly (1978)
A summary can be found here. Published in Cavalier, and you can tell. Feels like a Bachman story, in that it’s rather nasty, lurid and frankly gross. It’s a bunch of nonsense, and I don’t blame King for leaving this one out of any party.
The Crate (1979)
A summary can be found here. This story was adapted for Creepshow, and remains fairly unchanged in its transition to the screen. This may explain why it hasn’t been collected. However, this feels like King proper, and if you hadn’t seen Creepshow but somehow tracked this down instead, this would do more than fill in that gaps. The first one, besides the childish early stories, that I genuinely enjoyed.
Skybar (1982)
A summary can be found here. A contest to promote the book called Do It Yourself Bookseller, where various authors provided a beginning and an end with someone adding a middle. Brian Hertz, aged 18, won the contest. Because it is essentially half a story, I can see why it has never been published properly, but the elements in play have some real horror to them. I’d almost like to see King’s version of the complete story for comparison.
The Leprechaun (1983)
King wrote this in the same way he wrote Eyes of the Dragon for Naomi, only this never got finished (and, obviously, unpublished). He wrote 30 pages, but it was lost off the back of a motorcycle and though King said he could reconstruct the lost work, all that remains are the few pages. It tells the story of a young Owen playing in the garden, and finding his cat playing with a tiny man. The pages that exist are fun, and it’s a shame there’s nothing more of it. Unlike The Plant, which is also unfinished, it does not end in a way that in itself is satisfying. Very much a curio.
Keyholes (1984)
Nothing more than a fragment to a story, that within the brief amount of words we have make no sense as to its possible next steps. In it, a concerned father talks to a psychiatrist about his son. Could be a fun writing game: here is the beginning of a King story – go finish it!
For the Birds (1986)
A summary can be found here. It would be generous to call this flash fiction, more of a good joke.
The Reploids (1988)
A summary can be found here. Weirdly, a story directly referenced by a main King book, namely The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, but remains otherwise uncollected. It’s not bad, but like the last couple entries feels unfinished, as if there were greater plans for the titular reploids. As it is, it feels unsatisfactory, and only really for the hardcore Tower completionist.
An Evening at God’s
A one minute play wherein a drunken God prematurely destroys the Earth for getting in the way of the TV, only to realise Alan Alda came from there. I could imagine this as a fun extra in a collection, but absolutely not essential.
And that’s all the ones I could find! If you know the location of another missing story, don’t be a stranger and let me know!
Deeper Thoughts for the Horror Inclined 