Dark Dreamers: Stanley Wiater Archive of Modern Horror Literature up for Auction

BOSTON, MA -  RR Auction is proud to present The Stanley Wiater archive of Modern Horror literature that comprehensively documents the history of the world’s most terrifying genre in its December monthly offering.

A three-time winner of the illustrious Bram Stoker Award, Wiater has earned distinction as a writer, editor, anthologist, journalist, and collector over the course of four decades, with his contributions adding significantly to the growth and visibility of the genre.

The enormous archive consists of over one hundred boxes of material from throughout Wiater’s remarkable career, broken down as follows: 79 banker’s boxes; 14 smaller boxes; four typewriter paper boxes; two bins of assorted posters and artwork; three 100-slot trays of audio tapes; and 27 books contributed to or edited by Wiater.

After several years of collecting pulp, horror, and adventure novels, Wiater found himself well positioned when modern horror emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the release of classic films like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, and then with the unprecedented rise of Stephen King as a mainstream horror scribe. A 1974 interview with Ray Bradbury, Wiater’s first as a budding journalist, paved the way for his career as a writer of oral history, in addition to his initial Bram Stoker Award for Dark Dreamers: Conversations with the Masters of Horror, a series of insightful interviews with twenty-six of the genre’s most influential writers.

Wiater’s massive collection of audio and videotape, offering over 200 hours of unedited recordings and transcripts, the vast bulk of which have never been published, serve the archive as a uniquely educational keystone and resource. A portion of the interview content includes talks with writers like Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Ira Levin, and David Morrell; and with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, George Romero, Roger Corman, David Cronenberg, and Sidney Pollack.  Ten of the audio tapes are available for listening online. 

In 2000, Wiater developed a television series fittingly called Dark Dreamers, which, inspired by his book of the same name, featured one-on-one interviews with writers Barker and Matheson, directors John Landis and Wes Craven, special effects wizard Stan Winston, and many more. The result is a collection of over 150 raw, unedited videotapes of never-before-seen footage. In addition to Dark Dreamers, Wiater has edited two anthologies of original fiction by nearly two dozen writers, as well as books on Stephen King, Brian Lumley, and Richard Matheson’s classic Twilight Zone television scripts. He edited Comic Book Rebels, a definitive treatment on the growth of the underground comix movement of the 1960s, and has penned numerous other manuscripts, both published and unpublished, including his first story, which won a contest judged by Stephen King.

The archive also features a large number of manuscripts—Wiater’s own and those of writers he anthologized or edited; a substantial amount of business and literary correspondence from a wide array of mainstream and underground writers; the paper archives of the Horror Writers Association; original unreleased material by fantasy surrealist photographer J. K. Potter; and a section of material related to Wiater’s employment with Mirage Studios.

“The Stanley Wiater archive documents the lore and history of literature’s most terrifying genre with amazing depth and unmatched appreciation,” said Robert Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction.

The Autographs, Artifacts & Animation auction from RR Auction began on November 17 and will conclude on December 7. For information, visit the RR Auction web site at www.rrauction.com.