Background and Publication
The novel was inspired by the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning, which King read as a sophomore at the University of Maine. King explains that he "played with the idea of trying a long romantic novel embodying the feel, if not the exact sense, of the Browning poem." King started writing this novel in 1970 on a ream of bright green paper that he found at the library.
The five stories that constitute the novel were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction:
- "The Gunslinger" (October 1978)
- "The Way Station" (April 1980)
- "The Oracle and the Mountains" (February 1981)
- "The Slow Mutants" (July 1981)
- "The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" (November 1981)
It took King twelve and a half years to finish the novel. The finished product was first published by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. as a limited edition in 1982. In 1988, Plume released it in trade paperback form. Since then, the book has been re-issued in various formats and included in boxed sets with other volumes of the series.
In 2003 the novel was reissued in a revised and expanded version with modified language and added and changed scenes intended to resolve inconsistencies with the later books in the series.
It is dedicated to Ed Ferman, long-time editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Read more about this topic: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
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