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The Shining
"The Shining," published by Stephen King in 1977, follows Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic, who takes a winter caretaker job at the isolated Overlook Hotel with his wife and psychically gifted young son, Danny, only for the hotel's malevolent influence to slowly consume Jack's sanity. King has said the novel was substantially inspired by a real stay at Colorado's Stanley Hotel with his wife in 1974, when the mostly empty, off-season hotel's eerie atmosphere left a strong impression that directly shaped the fictional Overlook Hotel's setting and mood. The novel became one of King's most critically acclaimed works and helped cement his reputation as a serious literary horror writer beyond genre fiction, exploring themes of addiction, family trauma, and isolation alongside its supernatural horror elements. The Shining's combination of King's real Stanley Hotel inspiration and its serious literary exploration of addiction and family trauma alongside supernatural horror has made it one of the most acclaimed horror novels of the 20th century.
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The Exorcist
"The Exorcist," published by William Peter Blatty in 1971, follows a mother's desperate search for help after her young daughter begins exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior, ultimately leading two Catholic priests to perform a harrowing exorcism. Blatty has said the novel was loosely inspired by a real 1949 case of an alleged demonic possession and exorcism involving a young boy in Maryland, which Blatty first heard about as a student at Georgetown University years before writing the book. The novel's massive commercial success and its hugely influential 1973 film adaptation, one of the highest-grossing horror films ever made, together played a major role in popularizing possession and exorcism as a defining horror subgenre in both literature and film for decades afterward. The Exorcist's combination of its grounding in a real alleged 1949 exorcism case and its role establishing possession horror as a major genre has made it one of the most influential horror novels of the 20th century.
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