Stephen King is known by many as a best-selling author, but every author is only as good as his works. King has produced various types of works such as short stories, novels, short stories, screenplays, and comics. His work constitutes "the most important bridge between the horror genre and literary respectability from the late 1960s and 1970s to the present" (Hoppenstand 3). Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine. He is the second son of Donald Edwin and Nellie Ruth King. When King was two years old, his father, a captain in the merchant navy, went out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned. King's mother Nellie raised King and his adopted older brother David. The family in Nellie's care experienced many hardships and moved often while looking for work. The family lived in Maine, Massachusetts, Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. When King was six years old, the family finally settled in Stratford, Connecticut (Hoppenstand 8; Stephen King). In 1958, when King was eleven, the family moved to Durham, Maine. It was there that King discovered he had something in common with his father. In the attic of his uncle and aunt's garage, he discovered an old trunk containing a box of his father's books, including some by the horror writer HP Lovecraft, and some of his father's attempts at writing news. King's teachers reported that one of his greatest passions was writing his own stories, which he began doing at the age of six (Hoppenstand 8; Stephen King). Stephen King's life influenced his works and was an important source of inspiration, as evidenced by his education and early writing experiences, his pseudonym Richard Bachman, and his acc...... middle of paper. ....hard Bachman, but that's not true. I know him and I believe he lives in Connecticut”; “I'm not Richard Bachman, I know who he is and I can't say it”; “Bachman is in fact the pen name of a retired hippie who lives in New Hampshire. I know who he is and I tell you without any qualms that he is genuinely crazy” (Wood 148). King attributes the name of his pseudonym to a book by Richard Matheson that was on his desk and to Bachman-Turner Overdrive that was playing on the radio when his editor called to ask what pseudonym he wanted to use (Wood 148). King became familiar. even to those who have not read any of his works. Although he tries to maintain a certain degree of privacy for himself and his family, he enjoys a high public profile. King made headlines in 1999 when he was hit by a van while out for a daily walk and suffered near-fatal injuries..