Stephen King has book pulled from all shelves that will never be printed again

The ‘King of Horror’, Stephen King has over 60 books and more than 200 short stories to his name.

And yet, there’s one book he had pulled from all shelves and it will likely never be printed again.

Released over five decades ago under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, the author himself wanted Rage to be out of circulation.

Of course, King is easily one of the most famous horror authors in the world, with much of his work making it onto the big screen, such as It and The Shining.

But the 78-year-old had a very specific reason to not want one of his own books to be sold and printed, as he referred to it as ‘the damned thing’. And it is made clear that he requested this.

King himself called for the book to no longer be published (Olivia Wong/Getty Images)

If you want a clue as to why King no longer wants Rage out there, a summary of it on his website reads: "A disturbed high-school student with authority problems kills one of his teachers and takes the rest of his class hostage.

"Over the course of one long, tense and unbearable hot afternoon, Charlie Decker explains what led him to this drastic sequence of events, while at the same time deconstructing the personalities of his classmates, forcing each one to justify his or her existence."

Given that the US has a tragically large number of mass shootings compared to other countries, this is already a hot button issue.

A note on the website adds: "No future printings will be made of this novel at Stephen's request due to the sensitive nature of the content."

King's chilling novel was removed from circulation in 1998 over two decades after it was released (Wikimedia Commons)

But it's not just the subject matter, because in the years after its initial release, a number of school shootings happened, and the book was found to be connected to several of them.

This led King to believe that the book had been a factor in shooters' motivation, in particular with 14-year-old Michael Carneal, who killed three students and injured six at Heath High School shooting in West Paducah, Kentucky, in December 1997.

Reports claim that a copy of Rage was found in the shooter's locker, and King decided to pull the book.

King told a 1999 library conference in Vermont: “I can’t say for sure that Michael Carneal had read my novel Rage, but news stories following the incident reported that a copy of it had been found in his locker. It seems likely to me that he did.

“Rage had been mentioned in at least one other school shooting… The Carneal incident was enough for me. I asked my publisher to take the damned thing out of print. They concurred.”

Rage was still published as part of the The Bachman Books collection, but has now been pulled from print altogether.