<div>The legendary novel of science-fiction horror: &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson&rdquo; (Stephen King). After he is exposed to a radioactive cloud, Scott Carey finds himself shrinking, slowly, day-by-day, inch-by-inch. Scott once had a normal, everyday existence as a husband and father, but as time passes, he becomes a national spectacle, something worthy of newspaper headlines. As Carey shrinks, smaller and smaller, his family become giants, more and more unreachable, and even the family cat becomes a predatory menace. In this world of disproportion, increasingly perilous with each passing day, Scott struggles to survive&mdash;and is pushed to the very limits of fear and existence . . . Adapted into the Hugo Award&ndash;winning film The Incredible Shrinking Man, this is a classic by the author of I Am Legend and other renowned works&mdash;a master of imagination whom Ray Bradbury called &ldquo;one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.&rdquo; &ldquo;A classic of suspense as poignant as it is frightening&mdash;a mix that only Richard Matheson could pull off.&rdquo; &mdash;Dean Koontz</div>

The Shrinking Man

<div>From the iconic author of I Am Legend: The fascinating, unfinished teleplay of a saga encompassing the Titanic, Jack the Ripper, and the paranormal. Richard Matheson, the celebrated Twilight Zone scripter, explored his interests in metaphysics, spiritualism, and parapsychology in such stories as Hell House, Somewhere in Time, and What Dreams May Come. In the early 1980s, he approached the ABC television network with a twenty-hour mini-series about such phenomena in contemporary times&mdash;and included two in-depth historical accounts of the psychic events related to the Jack the Ripper murders and in the Titanic disaster. Titled The Link, Matheson turned in a 557-page outline that ABC executives requested he condense into seven hour-long episodes. Unable to realize his original vision under such restrictions, Matheson abandoned the television project and attempted to novelize the outline. After writing 800 pages that only comprised the first part of the novel, he decided it was too unwieldy and moved on to other stories. Now, Matheson&rsquo;s fans can discover what might have been with this publication of The Link, which includes the entire original outline as well as part of the teleplay. The story follows Robert Allright, a writer working with paranormal investigator Cathy Graves to decipher a mystery unearthed by his father in an Arizona archeological dig. Allright&rsquo;s only clue is the mystifying crystal that his father believes is the key to a great discovery. &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo; &mdash;Stephen King &ldquo;Matheson peppers [The Link] with innumerable historical incidents of supposed paranormal activity that make fascinating reading.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

The Link

<div>An essential collection of rare tales of terror from the multi-award-winning Twilight Zone scripter and I Am Legend author&mdash;only available in ebook format. A researcher encounters an exotic new strain of &ldquo;Backteria&rdquo; that causes the infected person to vanish&mdash;leading the doctor on a path of discovery deep into a past he should have left buried. A simple &ldquo;Haircut&rdquo; that starts off as a routine trim becomes a dark and terrifying experience when a barber is confronted with a sick customer who seems otherworldly. A case of mistaken identity leads to a darkly farcical story of marriage, murder, and a love that knows no bounds in &ldquo;Getting Together.&rdquo; Backteria &amp; Other Improbable Tales gathers these and sixteen more uncanny short stories from master storyteller Richard Matheson, &ldquo;one of the great names in American terror fiction&rdquo; (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Stories include: &ldquo;Backteria&rdquo;, &ldquo;He Wanted to Live&rdquo;, &ldquo;Life Size&rdquo;, &ldquo;Man with a Club&rdquo;, &ldquo;Professor Fritz and the Runaway House&rdquo;, &ldquo;Purge Among Peanuts&rdquo;, &ldquo;The Prisoner&rdquo;, &ldquo;The Last Blah in the ETC&rdquo;, &ldquo;Counterfeit Bills&rdquo;, &ldquo;1984 &frac12;&rdquo;, &ldquo;Pride&rdquo;, &ldquo;Now Die In It&rdquo;, &ldquo;Leo Rising&rdquo;, &ldquo;Where There&rsquo;s a Will&rdquo; (written with Richard Christian Matheson), &ldquo;Getting Together&rdquo;, &ldquo;Person to Person&rdquo;, &ldquo;CU: Mannix&rdquo;, &ldquo;Haircut&rdquo;, &ldquo;An Element Never Forgets&rdquo; &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo; &mdash;Stephen King &ldquo;Perhaps no other living author is as responsible for chilling a generation with tantalizing nightmare visions.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times &ldquo;Matheson&rsquo;s a writer who just has the special knack, the deft skill to imagine terrifying scenarios on any scale, large and small, and give them chilling possibility.&rdquo; &mdash;Los Angeles Times</div>

Backteria

<div>An early pulse-pounding thriller from the Twilight Zone scribe and multi-award-winning author of I Am Legend. Vincent was a brilliant pianist, but a disturbed personality. The asylum he was committed to could not hold him. He escaped on an early Sunday morning, bent on revenge against those who betrayed him&mdash;his manager and the man who married his lover, Ruth. With his temper spiraling out of control, Vincent pursued his prey without mercy, brutally slaughtering anyone who got in his way. For four hours he would terrorize a community. His rage would not be sated no matter how much blood he spilled. And he refused to let anyone keep him from Ruth ever again . . . Richard Matheson, &ldquo;one of the great names in American terror fiction,&rdquo; unleashes a relentless novel of chilling suspense in Fury on Sunday (The Philadelphia Inquirer). &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo; &mdash;Stephen King &ldquo;Perhaps no other living author is as responsible for chilling a generation with tantalizing nightmare visions.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times &ldquo;Matheson&rsquo;s a writer who just has the special knack, the deft skill to imagine terrifying scenarios on any scale, large and small, and give them chilling possibility.&rdquo; &mdash;Los Angeles Times</div>

Fury on Sunday

<div>Winner of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award for best vampire novel of the century: the genre-defining classic of horror sci-fi that inspired three films. The population of the entire world has been obliterated by a pandemic of vampire bacteria. Yet somehow, Robert Neville survived. He must now struggle to make sense of what happened and learn to protect himself against the vampires who hunt him nightly. As months of scavenging and hiding turn to years marked by depression and alcoholism, Robert spends his days hunting his tormentors and researching the cause of their affliction. But the more he discovers about the vampires around him, the more he sees the unsettling truth of who is&mdash;and who is not&mdash;a monster. Richard Matheson&rsquo;s I Am Legend has been a major influence on horror literature. In 2012, it was named the best vampire novel of the century by the Horror Writers Association and the Bram Stoker Estate. The novel was adapted to film in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth, in 1971 as Omega Man, and in 2007 as I am Legend, starring Will Smith.</div>

I Am Legend

<div>This tale of summer camp horror and mystery by the author of I Am Legend is &ldquo;a deeply engaging story with a clear writing style that is a pleasure to read&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly). Camp Pleasant is a place of natural beauty and campfire singalongs. But when Matt Harper arrives there to work as a counselor, he discovers it is also a place of unrelenting abuse and brutality. The new camp director &ldquo;Big Ed&rdquo; Nolan is such a bully that the bucolic paradise feels more like a miniature Third Reich . . . until someone finally has enough and kills Big Ed. The suspects include a troubled young camper, a counselor who quit in the face of homophobic humiliation, and Big Ed&rsquo;s own wife, Ellen. &ldquo;[This] minimalist plot would be inadequate in other hands, but Matheson&mdash;author of Somewhere in Time and Hell House as well as classic Twilight Zone teleplays&mdash;has such a command of his craft that this book is a pure pleasure . . .The simple style recalls Hemingway&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly).</div>

Camp Pleasant

<div>In this suspense thriller by the author of I Am Legend and Now You See It, a man is on the run for his life after he&rsquo;s replaced by an impostor.Government mathematician Chris Barton lives a routine life&mdash;until, at the end of an ordinary workday, he finds his car missing from the employee parking lot. When he finally arrives home, there is a stranger living in his house&mdash;a man who claims to be him. Thrust suddenly into a surreal world where the evidence of his senses cannot be trusted and strangers are trying to kill him, Chris must avoid violent assassins while following a trail of cryptic clues to regain his life . . . &ldquo;Matheson is the master of paranoia&mdash;pitting a single man against unknown horrors and examining his every slow twist in the wind. 7 Steps is a book to be devoured in one long swallow.&rdquo; &mdash;San Jose Mercury News &ldquo;Richard Matheson is one of the great names in American terror fiction. 7 Steps to Midnight commands attention. . . . The writing is fortunately up to Matheson&#39;s high standards. This is a novel that flies across the page.&rdquo; &mdash;The Philadelphia InquirerPraise for Richard Matheson &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo; &mdash;Stephen King&ldquo;One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.&rdquo; &mdash;Ray Bradbury</div>

7 Steps to Midnight

<div>A simple crush could lead to an early grave in this pulp noir thriller for fans of Cornell Woolrich.Young novelist Dave Newton is instantly smitten when he meets blonde, beautiful Peggy. But Peggy has a past full of abuse and terror&mdash;and she&rsquo;s involved with Jerry, a lawyer with mob connections and an old rival from Dave&rsquo;s college days. Soon, Dave finds himself caught in a love triangle with Peggy and Jerry, desperate to win her affections. But when corpses begin to pile up in Peggy&rsquo;s wake, Dave must face the truth that either Jerry is a mass murderer&mdash;or Peggy is.Praise for Richard Matheson &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo;&mdash;Stephen King &ldquo;One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.&rdquo;&mdash;Ray Bradbury</div>

Someone is Bleeding

<div>In this pulp noir thriller for fans of Cornell Woolrich, a man&rsquo;s past invades his serene family life, and it&rsquo;s not going away quietly.At 32, Chris Martin lives a conventional life. He&rsquo;s married with a daughter, runs his own small business, and is working to save up money for a bigger home with his wife, Helen. He is happy and content with this staid but comfortable existence&mdash;until a late weeknight phone call turns everything upside down. Chris hasn&rsquo;t always been the model family man he appears to be. And when his past catches up to him, the terror comes into his home&mdash;just where he thought he was safest. As Chris finds all that he loves under attack, he must go to heroic lengths to keep his family and his life together.Inspired the 1970 Charles Bronson film Cold Sweat. Praise for Richard Matheson &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo;&mdash;Stephen King &ldquo;One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.&rdquo;&mdash;Ray Bradbury</div>

Ride the Nightmare

<div>A ghost story from the celebrated author of Hell House and I Am Legend, featuring a succubus homewrecker preying upon a troubled marriage.In 1982, before Matheson had fully achieved the cult-and-grandmaster status that he has today, Playboy Press published a version of his erotic ghost story that was so severely edited that Matheson took his name off the book and instead published it under the name Logan Swanson.In this restored version of the original manuscript, David and Ellen Cooper&rsquo;s twenty-one-year-old marriage is nearing the rocks, so they decide to leave Los Angeles for a honeymoon and go to Long Island. Soon after they arrive at their beach cottage, a strange woman, Marianna, appears to David, and he is immediately entranced.Matheson adeptly explores David&rsquo;s growing fear and guilt, which becomes intensified after he and Marianna make love in a secret room in the house. Although Marianna is portrayed as an &ldquo;earthbound spirit&rdquo; (a ghost who rejects the afterlife, appears real to all senses, believes she is alive, and through psychic attack, sucks life from the living) she&rsquo;s really more or less a succubus, gussied up in Casper the friendly ghost clothing. With each graphically detailed sexual rendezvous, Marianna pushes David to deeper levels of obsession, loss of will and irrationality. The story reaches an even higher pitch as the evil ghost begins to threaten Ellen, injecting some excellent suspense into unabashed pathos and outright titillation.Praise for Richard Matheson &ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo;&mdash;Stephen King &ldquo;One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.&rdquo;&mdash;Ray Bradbury</div>

Earthbound

<div>The author of I Am Legend transforms a lonely mansion into a madhouse where a group must face grisly tricks, shocking twists, and the mind of a killer.In Now You See It, the prolific master of suspense and horror delivers a knock-out tale the likes of which have not been seen since Henry Clouzot&rsquo;s devilish thriller Diabolique.Some years ago, the Great Delacorte, a famed stage magician, came down with a stroke that left him in a vegetative state, able to move only his eyes. The entire action of the novel is witnessed through these eyes as Delacorte sits in the Magic Room of his country estate, a room custom-tailored to display stage illusions. Delacorte&rsquo;s son, Max, has taken his name and place as an illusionist in every effort to replace his father. Max is supported by his wife Cassandra and her amazingly identical lookalike younger brother Brian. But for the past year, Cassandra has been poisoning Max&rsquo;s food with arsenic and a sleeping pill. She wants the act all for herself&mdash;but Max has his own ideas, and his revenge is the big dish that Matheson sets before us in this dazzler that offers top-flight fun!Praise for Now You See It &ldquo;One of his strongest efforts&hellip;. We&rsquo;re all a lot richer to have Richard Matheson among us.&rdquo;&#8213;Dean Koontz &ldquo;A fascinating variation on the locked-room mystery&hellip;with more hairpin turns than a mountain road. Now You See It&hellip;is absorbing.&rdquo;&#8213;The Washington Post Book World &ldquo;There are as many twists and turns as a medieval catacomb in one of the most fun novels of the year.&rdquo;&#8213;Rocky Mountain News &ldquo;Matheson&rsquo;s prose is extremely smooth and the pacing frantic.&rdquo;&#8213;The Philadelphia Inquirer</div>

Now You See It . . .

<div>The visionary first novel by the author of What Dreams May Come in which a man paralyzed by a gunshot reflects on his sordid past and hopes for redemption.Hunger and Thirst is Richard Matheson&rsquo;s first and until now previously unpublished novel, written fifty-plus years ago when Matheson was only twenty-three-years-old. Matheson&rsquo;s agent told him it was unpublishable due to its length and so to that end, Matheson put the manuscript in a drawer and left for California where his writing career changed dramatically.Hunger and Thirst centers around Erick, who lies paralyzed on his hospital bed after being shot during a botched bank robbery. Erick contemplates how his life became such a mess&mdash;from his childhood, to his service in the war, his romantic life, and now&mdash;and holds out hope to be saved&hellip;Perfect for fans of Stephen King&rsquo;s Gerald&rsquo;s GamePraise for Richard Matheson&ldquo;One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.&rdquo;&mdash;Ray Bradbury&ldquo;The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson.&rdquo;&mdash;Stephen King</div>

Hunger &amp; Thirst

<div>Collected song lyrics penned by the celebrated author of What Dreams May Come and Bid Time Return. Few of Richard Matheson&rsquo;s readers know that he had hopes for writing popular music. At a very early age, Matheson taught himself how to write sheet music, but his family could not afford the supplies and so he had to give up composition. But music never left his mind and when Matheson found a creative new outlet through his writing (cheaper than music, requiring only a pencil and paper), he quickly began composing both prose stories as well as poetry. He picked up music composition again at the age of seventeen, adding music to his poems. Here in Lyrics are the compositions that Matheson created, in publication for the very first time.</div>

Lyrics

<div>The celebrated author of Stir of Echoes and Hell House offers a fascinating exploration of parapsychology and its history.In Mediums Rare, horror and science fiction novelist Richard Matheson shares a personal project inspired by his lifelong interest in all things paranormal. Here is a brief account of psychic beginnings, covering subjects like telepathy, ESP, paranormal activity, and more.Parapsychology, today, utilizes highly advanced methodology. It has, long since, left behind the era of dim-lit parlors and spiritual melodramatics. It is, now, a completely legitimate field of study based upon precise and sophisticated test procedures. But it began quite differently.Matheson takes readers on a journey through paranormal history, beginning in Greek antiquity and making his way toward renowned American psychic Edgar Cayce. Along the way, he recounts episodes like the Margaret and Kate Fox, young sisters who, in 1848, convinced others they were in touch with ghosts in a haunted house. There&rsquo;s also Civil War-era medium Nettie Colburn who aided President Lincoln and may have channeled Daniel Webster. Other episodes include New England mediums &ldquo;Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Piper&rdquo; and the great magician Harry Houdini.&ldquo;Fans of parapsychology or of Matheson&rsquo;s other works should enjoy this lively exploration of great topics that inform the genre and have become legendary.&rdquo;&mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

Mediums Rare

<div>Ordinary people face hair-raising dangers in these four early suspense novels by the celebrated author of I Am Legend. The Shrinking Man In this sci-fi suspense classic adapted into multiple films, a man exposed to radiation begins to shrink at an alarming rate. As his life crumbles, he must survive menacing attacks from house cats and spiders. Camp Pleasant An idyllic summer camp turns horrifying when a young counselor is the witness to the murder of the new camp director. The mystery unfolds in a &ldquo;simple style that recalls Hemingway&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly). Hunger and Thirst In this previously unpublished early novel, a man is shot during a robbery gone wrong and wakes up to find himself paralyzed. Lying in his hospital bed, he flashes back to his difficult life and hopes for redemption. 7 Steps to Midnight At the end of an ordinary workday, mathematician Chris Barton finds a stranger living in his house, claiming to be him. Thrust into a surreal world of violence and mystery, Chris must go on the run and follow a series of cryptic clues to regain his life.</div>

Richard Matheson Suspense Novels

<div>Four classic novels of murder, madness, revenge, and survival by &ldquo;one of the great names in American terror fiction&rdquo; (Philadelphia Inquirer). I Am Legend Named the best vampire novel of the century by the Bram Stoker Estate, I Am Legend is the story of the last man to survive a pandemic that turned the rest of humanity into blood-sucking monsters. Someone Is Bleeding In Matheson&rsquo;s debut novel, a young novelist falls for a beautiful woman who is involved with a shady lawyer. But the love triangle turns dangerous when corpses begin to pile up in the woman&rsquo;s wake. Ride the Nightmare A family man saving up for larger home, Chris Martin lives a conventional life&mdash;until a secret from his past invades his home, threatening everything he has built. Fury on Sunday A lunatic pianist escapes from an insane asylum one Sunday morning and spends the next four hours on a revenge-fueled rampage to find his erstwhile manager and his lover&rsquo;s new husband.</div>

Richard Matheson

Books By Richard Matheson (16 Books)