It is rarely read in English.

And never read in French.

Le 1 des libraires

publishes this Thursday a prologue to

The Shining: The Light Child

by Stephen King.

The chapter in question had been left out of the novel when it was published in 1977.

Five “scenes” appear in this overture.

The author begins by recounting events in the Overlook Hotel where the plot takes place and where the main characters, Jack Torrance, his wife Wendy and their son Danny, are going to settle in the middle of winter.

It is one of these scenes, "A room in the early morning", which takes place in August 1929, that the weekly 

Le 1 des libraires

offers its readership.

This part chronicles the misadventures of Lottie Kilgallon Pillsbury, a newlywed who insisted on spending her honeymoon at the Overlook, in the middle of the Rockies, rather than in Italy.

In English, this prologue was published in 1982 in a specialized magazine, then in 2017 in a luxury reissue of the novel, which is now out of print.

It remained unpublished until now in French.

like a play

The prologue in five "scenes" is entitled in English

Before the play

("Before the play").

Stephen King conceiving his book as a tragedy with unity of time, place and action – like a play.

The publisher, Doubleday, however, felt that the story, already long with its 450 pages, could do without these chapters, as well as an epilogue entitled

After the play

(“After the play”).

Published in French under the title

Shining: L'enfant lumière

, Stephen King's third work was originally titled 

The Shining

.

Sold in several million copies worldwide, it was successfully adapted to the cinema by Stanley Kubrick in 1980.

In 2013, press information had mentioned the project of an adaptation of the prologue to the cinema.

Stephen King was hostile to it, he who never liked

Stanley Kubrick's The

Shining either.

Series

Does Stephen King know how to best adapt his serial books?

Books

"After", Stephen King's new thriller paralyzes the publishing industry

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