The Mist is a novella penned by the godfather of horror writing, Stephen King. It tells the story of a mist that suddenly envelops the small town of Bridgton in Maine; the mist is not a natural phenomenon but an evil one, and it hides monsters from other worlds within it.
The novella was inspired by King's own experiences, when a violent thunderstorm occurred. After the storm, King drove out to a local convenience store and was struck by the mist that seemed to hang in the air after the storm had passed. Whilst he and his son were in the store he began to imagine the shapes of flying monsters in the mist outside; by the time father and son arrived home, he had conceived a horror story set in a supermarket, where people were hiding from the monsters brought in by the mist outside.
The novella was initially published in 1980 as part of the horror anthology Dark Forces. It appeared again in 1985 as the longest story in the King compendium Skeleton Crew. It was not until the book was adapted for the big screen by director Frank Darabont that it was finally published as a paperback novella in its own right, in 2007. It was also adapted for television, and aired as a dramatic series on the Spike network, but it was not as successful as network executives had hoped and it was shelved after just one season.
King is widely considered to be the preeminent horror writer in the world. He has written sixty-one novels and over two hundred short stories and novellas. His first novel, Carrie, was published in 1977 and has remained one of his best known, largely because of the film adaptation that was followed a year later by the disturbing novel The Shining, the movie version of which features an iconic photograph of Jack Nicholson on the poster. Another book-turned-movie, Firestarter, was one of the first films made by Drew Barrymore after her breakthrough role in E.T.
King has been the recipient of multiple awards for his writing, including an unprecedented fifteen Bram Stoker Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Awards.
