Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition (75 page)

Wimsey (1977) 

Wimsey is a story fragment from the Lord Peter Wimsey novel King worked on in late 1977. The piece is a double-spaced, typewritten manuscript, containing the first chapter, of fourteen pages, and only the first page of a second chapter. Although it has never been published copies of this fragment circulate in the King community. A copy (typed on green paper) was offered for resale via Betts Bookshop in 2006. 

The attempted novel was the result of both the King family’s abortive move to England and a discussion between King and his editor of the time, Bill Thompson. The discussion revolved around the writing of a novel using the detective character, Lord Peter Wimsey, created by Dorothy L Sayers. More of Wimsey and Sayers later. 

The King family moved to England in the Fall of 1977. King was reported in the Fleet News as saying he wanted to write a book “…with an English setting.” The house they settled on was Mourlands, at 87 Aldershot Road, Fleet in Hampshire. Beahm reported that the Kings had advertised for a home, reading, “Wanted, a draughty Victorian house in the country with dark attic and creaking floorboards, preferable haunted.” King’s US paperback publisher, NAL, issued a press release stating King had moved to England to write “…a novel even more bloodcurdling than the previous ones …” Although this does not sound at all like a genteel British detective novel, we can perhaps forgive the publisher’s enthusiasm for its best-selling writer. 

Once in England King did not find the inspiration required for an English novel, perhaps explaining the fragmentary nature of Wimsey, but he did begin one of his most famous novels, Cujo during the three months the family remained in the country. One story based in England did result from the trip, however. In mid-October 1977 the King family had dinner with Peter Straub and his wife in the London suburb of Crouch End. This resulted in King’s Lovecraftian story, Crouch End, originally published in the 1980 collection New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos and in a heavily revised version in 1993’s Nightmare and Dreamscapes. 

Of course, the best result of the England trip may have been the beginning of King’s long and fruitful relationship with fellow author Straub, which has so far resulted in both The Talisman and Black House, with a reasonable likelihood that a third Jack Sawyer novel will be written. 

Apparently King sent the fragment of Wimsey to Bill Thompson for review but Thompson’s reaction is unknown. We can only presume it was either not positive or King himself had lost interest in the concept. In retrospect this is likely to have been a good thing. Despite King’s typecasting as a horror novelist, which resulted from Night Shift, The Stand, The Dead Zone and Cujo being the books to follow Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot and The Shining, it is likely King’s career has been all the more fruitful as a so-called horror novelist than as a so-called detective or mystery writer, along the lines of Sayers or Agatha Christie (although King’s take on Death on the Nile might be interesting, to say the least). 

In what we can read of this aborted novel Lord Peter Wimsey and his servant Bunter are on their way, through “beastly rain” to a party at Sir Patrick Wayne’s estate in the country. Wimsey had last met Sir Patrick in 1934. Wimsey and Bunter discuss the foul weather and the death of Salcomb Hardy, which has put Wimsey in a funk. During the trip the two men’s dry sense of humor becomes apparent. 

After they cross “…an alarmingly rickety plank bridge which spanned a swollen stream…” Wimsey calls for a toilet stop and, alerted by the contrast to its more solid nature the previous time he had crossed it, looks at the bridge, only to find that the supports had been cut almost through. Somehow this dangerous discovery seems to have enlivened Wimsey, who calls with “…more excitement in his voice than Bunter had heard in a long time … he could not remember how long.” However, Bunter thinks this flash will pass:  

… gleams of what Wimsey had been and could not even yet deny utterly. It would pass, and he would become the Wimsey that was in this dull aftermath of the war that had made their war seem like child’s play – a dreary ghost-Wimsey, distracted and vague, a Wimsey who did too much solitary drinking, a Wimsey whose wit had soured. 

Returning to the car Wimsey states that if the heavy weather continues the bridge will collapse. When they return to the road Wimsey even wonders if “Sir Pat” was not himself responsible for trying to isolate his home from the world, considering in particular his “…invitation, renewed so tiresomely over the last month and a half, until we quite ran out of excuses. It began to take on a … a flavor, did it not?” Wimsey and Bunter begin to consider that Sir Patrick might have a problem “…requiring certain detective talents…” Then, “Wimsey said quietly, ‘I don’t detect. I shall never detect again.’ Bunter did not reply. ‘If I hadn’t been off detecting for the British Secret Service, I … what rot.’” Apparently Wimsey blamed himself for his wife’s death in the Blitz. 

Now their thoughts turn to Miss Katherine Climpson, another of Wimsey’s employees. Wimsey tentatively asks how “she” was and Bunter does “… not affect to know of whom Lord Peter spoke.” We discover that Climpson is mortally ill with cancer in a hospital near Wimsey’s Picadilly flat and that he had “…gone to visit her himself in the first nine weeks of her stay, but at last he had been able to face it no more. He cursed himself for a coward, reviled himself, called himself a slacker and a yellow-livered slug … but he did not go.” The slow decline of Climpson was,  

Too much. Harriet was dead; his brother was dead; even Salcomb Hardy was dead; Miss Climpson was dying and Sir Patrick Wayne, a rich old bore who had been knighted for making himself richer at the expense of thousands of lives, was alive and apparently doing fine. “Is tomorrow Halloween, Bunter?” “I believe it is, my lord.” “It should be,” Wimsey said, and helped himself to a cigarette. “It bloody well should be.” 

As Sir Patrick’s house approaches the brakes fail and their Bentley crashes (Bunter, still in character, laconically comments, “We appear to have lost all braking power, my lord”). Chapter One ends at this point. 

In the aftermath of the crash and the beginning of Chapter Two Wimsey wakes and calls for Bunter. At this point what we have of the story ends. 

Although Wimsey is relatively short there are a number of interesting facts to report. Sir Patrick Wayne’s estate is seven miles from Little Shapley, England. If the bridge collapsed there was only one other road, barely a cart track, out of the estate. Wimsey and Bunter were driving to the estate on 30 October 1945 (“is tomorrow Halloween?”), less than six months after the end of the Second World War in Europe.  

The only details of note that King provides us with about Wimsey himself are that he was formerly a detective with the British Secret Service, that his wife Harriet Vane Wimsey had died during the German blitz and the reader’s presumption that the elder Duke of Denver was Wimsey’s brother. 

Wimsey’s nephew, the current Duke of Denver (“Jerry”) had visited Sir Patrick Wayne’s daughter until she had become engaged to another man. Jerry had served in the RAF during the Battle of Britain and was one of the relatively few survivors of that action. 

Katherine Climpson seems set to be an important character in the novel. She ran Wimsey’s typing bureau, was unmarried, and was dying of cancer in a hospital on Great Ormond Street, London. Salcomb Hardy, who had recently died of a stroke, was a crime reporter and heavy drinker. Wimsey read his obituary in The Times.  

King adopted a style for Wimsey that is indeed very English in tone, including a rather dry tone of exchange between Bunter and the title character. It is clear that King was quite capable of delivering in this style, as one might expect from a premier novelist. In one passage, as Bunter pulls the car over for a comfort stop, he reminds his employer, “If you would not take it amiss, my lord, your heavy overcoat is on the hook directly behind you. I’m afraid of the effects of the rain might be on that worsted.” In another Wimsey says, “Let’s go back to the car, Bunter, before we take a chill,” in the best of British aristocratic tones of the 1940s. 

Wimsey is mentioned as a literary character in both Bag of Bones and Apt Pupil. Adding this to the fact that King attempted a Wimsey novel leads us to speculate that King is probably a fan of the Wimsey series. King listed Wimsey’s creator, Dorothy L Sayers, as one of the authors he most admired during an interview for The Waldenbook Report in late 1997. 

Sayers’ character, Lord Peter Wimsey was immensely popular in the 1920s and 1930s and the books are still read avidly today. The BBC made two successful television series based on the character, starring Ian Carmichael and Peter Haddon in the lead roles, and there were also 1935 and 1940 movies based on two of the novels.  

The fourteen novels and additional short stories were all published from the 1920s through the early 1940s and feature Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, the younger brother of the Duke of Denver and a World War I veteran. His manservant is Bunter. An avid rare book collector, Wimsey develops a penchant for investigating crime, often assisting Detective Inspector Charles Parker, his brother in law. Sayers’ imaginary life of Lord Peter ends in 1942, with Wimsey married to Harriet Vane and the father of three sons. From the Author’s Note in Thrones, Dominations we know that he served in Military Intelligence in World War II. 

It seems that King has been faithful to the Wimsey mythology, as we would expect. He has Wimsey married to Harriet, although he extends the mythos by having her die in the Blitz. He also has Wimsey serving in the British Secret Service during the War, linking the note of his serving in Military Intelligence. Readers will conclude from the text that he is the uncle of the current Duke of Denver, which is the way Sayers had it. 

Sayers herself was acquainted with a number of the literary circles of her time, being a friend of T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis. She was a figure of some controversy, having had a child out of wedlock in 1924 and being accused of anti-Semitism in her writing. Apart from the Wimsey and Vane stories (Harriet Vane was also an amateur detective), which set her up financially and which she then retired from writing, she also wrote religious essays and plays in an orthodox Anglican manner; and translated some of Dante’s writings. Interestingly enough, she also translated the Song of Roland from the Old French. That work is an anonymous Old French epic, dating to the 11th Century and is regarded as the first of the great French heroic poems known as chansons de geste. Born in 1893, Sayers died in 1957. 

King has continued to show an interest in crime and detective stories and has presented his Constant Readers with a limited but quality selection, including The Fifth Quarter, Man with a Belly, The Wedding Gig, The Doctor’s Case, Umney’s Last Case and The Colorado Kid. 

Appendix: Bibliography

Fiction

The following is a list of all known King fiction as at 30 April 2010 (including announced material for
Full Dark, No Stars
). Where the author has assessed that the story appears in different versions or variations (
see Chapter 4 – Variations and Versions in King’s Fiction for more detail
) these are listed individually. Otherwise, only the first point of publication and any inclusions in a King collection is listed.

The codes used below are: (a) = Abridgement; (e) = Excerpt; (n) = New Version; (r) = Reprint; (v) = Variation

The Aftermath
Unpublished Novel

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away The New Yorker
, 29 January 2001

Everything’s Eventual
(v)

American Vampire
Graphic Novel

An Evening at God’s
Unpublished Play

Apt Pupil Different Seasons

Autopsy Room Four Six Stories

Everything’s Eventual
(r)

Ayana Paris Review
, Fall 2007

Just After Sunset
(r)

Bag of Bones
Novel

The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
,
June 1984

Skeleton Crew
(v)

Battleground Cavalier
, September 1972

Night Shift
(v)

Night Shift
Screenplay (n)

Beachworld Weird Tales
, Fall 1984

Skeleton Crew
(v)

The Bear The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, December 1990

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
(n)

Before the Play Whispers
, August 1982

TV Guide
, 26 April – 2 May 1997 (a)

The Beggar and the Diamond Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Beneath the Demon Moon
Paperback Giveaway

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

Big Driver Full Dark, No Stars

Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game New Terrors 2

(Milkman #2) Skeleton Crew
(n)

The Bird and the Album A Fantasy Reader: The Seventh World

Fantasy Convention Program Book

It
(n)

Black House
Novel

Black Ribbons Black Ribbons
(album), 2010

Blaze
Novel

Blind Willie Antaeus
, Autumn 1994

Six Stories
(v)

Hearts in Atlantis
(n)

Blockade Billy
Novella

The Blue Air Compressor Onan
, January 1971

Heavy Metal
, July 1981 (v)

The Body Different Seasons

The Bone Church Playboy
, November 2009

The Boogeyman Cavalier
, March 1973

Night Shift
(v)

The Breathing Method Different Seasons

Brooklyn August Io
, 1971

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(r)

But Only Darkness Loves Me
Unpublished Short Story

Cain Rose Up Ubris
, Spring 1968

Skeleton Crew
(n)

Calla Bryn Sturgis
www.stephenking.com

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
(n)

The Cannibals
www.stephenking.com

Carrie
Novel

The Cat from Hell Cavalier
, June 1977

Cat’s Eye
Unpublished Screenplay

Cell
Novel

Chapter 71 – Sword in the Darkness Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished

Charlie
Unpublished Short Story

Chattery Teeth Cemetery Dance
, Fall 1992

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(n)

Children of the Corn Penthouse
, March 1977

Night Shift
(n)

Unpublished Screenplay (n)

Chinga
Unpublished Screenplay

Chip Coombs
Unpublished Story

Christine
Novel

Code Name: Mousetrap The Drum
, 27 October 1965

The Colorado Kid
Novel

Comb Dump
Unpublished Story

The Crate Gallery
, July 1979

Creepshow
Screenplay (n)

Creepshow
(n)

Creepshow
Unpublished Screenplay

Crouch End New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(n)

Cujo
Novel

Unpublished Screenplay (n)

The Cursed Expedition People, Places and Things

Cycle of the Werewolf
Novella

The Dark Half
Novel

The Dark Man Ubris
, Fall 1969

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
Original Novel

Revised and Expanded Novel (n)

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the
Novel

Three

The Dark Tower III: The Wastelands
Novel

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
Novel

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
Novel

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
Novel

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
Novel

The Dead Zone
Novel

Unpublished Screenplay (n)

The Death of Jack Hamilton The New Yorker
, 24/31 December 2001

Everything’s Eventual
(r)

Dedication Night Visions 5

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(n)

Desperation
Novel

Unpublished Screenplay (n)

Dino
The Salt Hill Journal
,
Autumn 1994

The Doctor’s Case The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(r)

Do the Dead Sing? Yankee
, November 1981

Dolan’s Cadillac Castle Rock
, 1985

Limited Edition Novella (n)

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(r)

Unpublished Screenplay (v)

Dolores Claiborne
Novel

Donovan’s Brain Moth
, 1970

Dreamcatcher
Novel

Duma Key
Novel

The End of the Whole Mess Omni
, October 1986

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(n)

The Evaluation
Unpublished Story

Everything’s Eventual The Magazine of Fantasy and Science

Fiction
, October 1997

F13
(v)

Everything’s Eventual
(v)

Eyes of the Dragon
Limited Edition Novel

Mass Market Novel (n)

Fair Extension Full Dark, No Stars

The Falls of the Hounds
Paperback Giveaway

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

Father’s Day Creepshow
Screenplay

Creepshow
(n)

The Fifth Quarter Cavalier
, April 1972

The Twilight Zone Magazine
, February

1986 (n)

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(n)

Firestarter
Novel

For Owen Skeleton Crew

For the Birds Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?

The 43rd Dream The Drum
, 29 January 1966

The Illustrated Stephen King Companion

1. Blood and Smoke
   

Everything’s Eventual
(v)

From a Buick 8
Novel

The Furnace Know Your World Extra

General Screamplays

George D. X. McArdle
Unpublished Novel

Gerald’s Game
Novel

The Gingerbread Girl Esquire
, July 2007

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Novel

The Glass Floor Startling Mystery Stories
, Fall 1967

Weird Tales
, Fall 1990 (v)

Golden Years
Unpublished Screenplay

A Good Marriage Full Dark, No Stars

Graduation Afternoon Postscripts
, Spring 2007

Just After Sunset
(r)

Gramma Weirdbook
, Spring 1984

Skeleton Crew
(n)

Graveyard Shift Cavalier
, October 1970

Night Shift
(r)

Gray Matter Cavalier
, October 1973

Night Shift
(r)

The Green Mile
Serialized Novel

Omnibus Novel (v)

The Hardcase Speaks
Contraband, 1 December 1971

Harrison State Park ’68 Ubris
, Fall 1968

Harvey’s Dream The New Yorker
, 30 June 2003

Just After Sunset
(r)

Hearts in Atlantis Hearts in Atlantis

Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling Hearts in Atlantis

Here There Be Tygers Ubris
, Spring 1968

Skeleton Crew
(v)

Heroes for Hope: Starring the X-Men Heroes for Hope: Starring the X-Men
, #1

Home Delivery The Book of the Dead

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
(n)

The Hotel at the End of the Road People, Places and Things

The House on Maple Street Nightmares and Dreamscapes

I Am the Doorway Cavalier
, March 1971

Night Shift
(r)