Stephen King Ruled Horror Every Year of the '90s - Except One
The 1990s were a strange time to love horror. The genre's mass-market paperback boom had peaked, the bookstore shelves were crowded with legal thrillers andDanielle Steel romances, and yet horror kept climbing the Publishers Weekly annual fiction charts. Every single year it was on the shoulders of one man, with one very notable exception.
Here's the top horror fiction breakdown for each year of the '90s:
1990 - Four Past Midnight, Stephen King King opened the decade with this collection of four novellas, landing at No. 2 on the Publishers Weekly annual fiction bestseller list. The book (including 'The Langoliers' and 'Secret Window, Secret Garden') won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Collection that year and hit No. 1 on the New York Timesweekly fiction chart. Four novellas, one monster sales figure.
1991 - Needful Things, Stephen King Billed as the 'Last Castle Rock Story,' Needful Things came in at No. 3 on the Publishers Weekly annual fiction list. A new shop opens in King's fictional Maine town with a devilish proprietor offering irresistible bargains...at a cost. The novel later became a 1993 film. Castle Rock would never be the same, and King's grip on horror readers remained total.
1992 - Dolores Claiborne, Stephen King The only year in the decade that a horror novel sat atop the entire Publishers Weekly annual fiction chart. Dolores Claiborne was No. 1 overall, ahead of The Pelican Brief, ahead of everything. The psychological portrait of a Maine housekeeper accused of murder contained almost nothing supernatural, yet it was pure King, dark, relentless, and impossible to put down. Kathy Bates starred in the 1995 film adaptation.
1993 - Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Stephen King King's short story collection, 23 tales, each with an author's note, debuted at No. 5 on Publishers Weekly's annual fiction chart, ahead of Anne Rice's Lasher at No. 7. It spent 15 weeks on PW's weekly bestseller list.
1994 - Insomnia, Stephen KingThe Chamber by John Grisham went to No. 1 that year, but the top horror title was King's Insomnia at No. 5 on the Publishers Weekly annual fiction list, with Anne Rice's Taltosat No. 12. The 800-page novel follows an elderly widower plagued by sleeplessness and increasingly vivid hallucinations that grow impossible to distinguish from reality.
1995 - Rose Madder, Stephen King The Rainmaker pushed Grisham back to the top, but King placed Rose Madderat No. 7 on Publishers Weekly's annual fiction chart. The novel, about a woman who escapes an abusive husband and discovers a mysterious painting that takes on a life of its own, is one of King's more underrated titles of the decade.
1996 - Desperation, Stephen King In one of the most remarkable maneuvers in publishing history, King released two novels simultaneously in September 1996 under different names, Desperationas Stephen King and The Regulators as Richard Bachman. Both made the Publishers Weekly annual fiction chart: Desperation at No. 3, The Regulators at No. 5. Desperation, set in a Nevada mining town terrorized by a demonic sheriff, was the unambiguous horror entry.
Related: 1976 Horror Hit Ranked Among 'Best Stephen King Movies of All Time' Became a Cult Classic
1997 - Wizard and Glass, Stephen King King's only major release of 1997 was the fourth volume of The Dark Tower series, and it debuted as a No. 1 national bestseller. While the series blends fantasy, Western, and science fiction, Wizard and Glass contains substantial horror elements, including a Stand-style superflu apocalypse, and no other horror title came close to its commercial impact that year.
1998 - Bag of Bones, Stephen KingKing's first book with Scribner placed at No. 3 on the Publishers Weekly annual fiction list, behind Grisham and Tom Clancy. Bag of Bones, a ghost story about a grieving novelist who retreats to his Maine lake house, won King the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and marked what many critics called a maturation in his writing. He had not lost his readers.
1999 - Hannibal, Thomas Harris The decade's lone exception to King's dominance. Thomas Harris's long-awaited sequel to The Silence of the Lambs ranked second on Publishers Weekly's 1999 annual fiction chart, second only to Grisham's The Testament, capitalizing on the character's cult following from the earlier novel and its film adaptation. The book moved millions of copies and Dr. Lecter devoured the competition. In nine of ten years, Stephen King was the best-selling horror author in America. Thomas Harris took the one that got away.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 10:09 AM.