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A Definitive Ranking of Every Stephen King Novel Ever
It’s rare to find a writer who can haunt your dreams with terrifying visions of say, for example, a shapeshifting clown, while ruminating on the battle of good and evil… while commenting on societal injustices… while exploring the very base of human nature…. while illuminating the power of friendship and love. And did we mention this writer also makes you weep? Not just the regular I’m-reading-a-sad-book tears but I’m-full-on-sobbing-in-a-public-park-on-a-sunny-summer-day tears. Enter Stephen King.
King has had plenty of opportunities to rip out his Dear Readers’ hearts in the fifty years that he’s been publishing. So, we thought we’d follow the breadcrumbs through the decades, savoring the morsels of our favorite books* on the way to September’s Fairy Tale.
*NOTE! Absent from this list: novellas, collections, Bachman books, nonfiction, and books he cowrote.
The 1970s
- Carrie – April 5, 1974
- ‘Salem’s Lot – October 17, 1975
- The Shining – January 1977
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- Here’s Johnny! Stephen King exploded onto the scene with Carrie, and while the vampires of ‘Salem’s Lot are the stuff of nightmares, nothing beats The Shining. Semi-autobiographical and downright terrifying, King traps readers in the deserted Overlook Hotel in the dead of winter with ghosts, a little boy with a shine, and an alcoholic father slowly descending into madness. Rife with mazes, mallets, and malice, the Torrance family’s torment is sure to haunt your dreams for years to come.
- The Dead Zone – August 1979
The 1980s
- Firestarter – September 1980
- Cujo – September 1981
- The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger – June 1982
- Christine – April 1983
- Pet Sematary – November 1983
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- What if you could bring back the dead? That’s the central question in this gutting novel. Louis Creed’s toddler son gets hit by a truck, killing him instantly. It’s a story of the enormity of grief and the lengths we go to for some semblance of normalcy. Louis is able to bring Gage back with the help of a small pet cemetery in the woods behind his house, but something just isn’t right. Afterall, sometimes dead is better.
- Cycle of the Werewolf – April 1985
- IT – September 1986
- The Eyes of the Dragon – February 1987
- The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three – May 1987
- Misery – June 1987
- The Tommyknockers – November 1987
- The Dark Half – November 1989
The 1990s
- The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition – May 1990
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- Okay so there is probably going to be some debate here. Technically The Stand came out in 1978, but Stephen King famously prefers the complete and uncut edition, and to be honest, so do we. This is truly an unputdownable novel made even more frightening by the very real pandemic we are currently in the midst of. Is there an alternate reality where society as we know it totally devolved into an epic battle between good and evil in the wake of a certain debilitating flulike virus? Hopefully only between these pages.
- The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands – August 1991
- Needful Things – October 1991
- Gerald’s Game – May 1992
- Insomnia – September 1994
- Rose Madder – June 1995
- Desperation – September 1996
- Dolores Claiborne – November 1996
- The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass – November 1997
- Bag of Bones – September 1998
- The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – April 1999
The 2000s
- The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel – October 2000
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- Remember when we mentioned sobbing in a public park? We have two words for you: John Coffey. One of King’s most endearing characters, John Coffey is a death row inmate in Cold Mountain Penitentiary. An enormous and simple man, he’s been sentenced to death for a horrific double murder that he didn’t commit. The only thing is that he can’t really prove he’s innocent unless his accusers—and the police and the court and just society in general—are willing to suspend their disbelief in a major way. He is the living embodiment of goodness, but ultimately that isn’t enough. Originally published as a serial novel, The Green Mile will make you weep and scream for justice.
- Dreamcatcher – February 2001
- From Buick 8 – September 2002
- The Dark Tower: The Wolves of Calla – November 2003
- The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah – June 2004
- The Dark Tower – September 2004
- Cell – January 2006
- Lisey’s Story – October 2006
- Duma Key – January 2008
- Under the Dome – November 2009
The 2010s
- 11/22/63 – November 2011
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- What if JFK was never assassinated? What would our world look like? What if you could stop it? An English teacher from Maine finds himself answering these very questions in this magnificent novel. This book has everything: time travel, the butterfly effect, political implications, and even some lighthearted dancing with the losers from IT. Yeah, you read that right.
- The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole – April 2012
- Joyland – June 2013
- Doctor Sleep – September 2013
- Mr. Mercedes – June 2014
- Revival – November 2014
- Finders Keepers – June 2015
- End of Watch – June 2016
- The Outsider – May 2018
- The Institute – September 2019
The 2020s
- Later – March 2021
- Billy Summers – August 2021
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- If you want a job done right, then you’d better hire Billy Summers. That is, before he retires. This decorated Iraq war veteran turned gun-for-hire just agreed to take on his last job posing as a writer while waiting to take out his target. This novel is full of action and suspense, but what really gets us is the writer’s journey Billy goes on. The heart of this book is the story within the story, with little callbacks to other people and places in Stephen King’s multiverse along the way.
- Fairy Tale – September 2022
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- About ten years ago, Stephen King introduced us to a secondary character named Holly Gibney, a brilliant private investigator with OCD, overwhelming anxiety and a lot of heart, in his Bill Hodges trilogy. She popped up again to help solve the terrifying mystery of The Outsider and then again as the main protagonist in the title novella in 2021’s If it Bleeds. She’s been portrayed on screen by Cynthia Erivo in HBO’s The Outsider and Justine Lupine in Peacock’s Mr. Mercedes. She’s finally the star of the show in Holly and man does it pack a punch! Readers can dive right into the story without having read the others she’s appeared in (though they are great books and fun mysteries so you might want to). She is running the Finders Keepers agency in Bill’s absence, and though Covid has shut down most of the world, it hasn’t stopped people disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Are they runaways or is it something more sinister? Come on, it’s Stephen King, it’s always something more sinister. This book is full of unexpected twists and turns, and Holly is there through it all, heroically facing down her own demons while working the case. It’ll leave you shocked, shuddering and searching for more stories with our girl.