Richard Matheson  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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In 1963, Roger Corman directed The Raven, a horror-comedy written by Richard Matheson very loosely based on the poem, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. It stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as a trio of rival sorcerers.

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Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 - June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the speculative fiction genre. He is perhaps best known as the author of I Am Legend, adapted as major motion picture at least three times. Matheson also wrote numerous television episodes of The Twilight Zone for Rod Serling. He later adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay which was promptly directed by a young Steven Spielberg, for the TV movie of the same name.

He adapted the works of Edgar Allan Poe for the Roger Corman's Poe series including House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and The Raven (1963).

Biography

Born in Allendale, New Jersey to Norwegian immigrant parents, Matheson was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943. He then entered the military and spent World War II as an infantry soldier. In 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri–Columbia and moved to California in 1951. He married in 1952 and has four children, three of whom (Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays.

Bibliography

Novels

• Someone is Bleeding (1953)
• Fury on Sunday (1953)
• I Am Legend (1954) filmed as The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man & I Am Legend
• The Shrinking Man (1956); filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man and subsequently reprinted under that title; also the basis of the film The Incredible Shrinking Woman
• A Stir of Echoes (1958); filmed as Stir of Echoes
• Ride the Nightmare (1959); adapted as an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
• The Beardless Warriors (1960); filmed as The Young Warriors
• Comedy of Terrors with Elsie Lee (1964); filmed as The Comedy of Terrors
• Hell House (novel) (1971); filmed as The Legend of Hell House
• The Night Stalker (1972); written with Jeff Rice
• The Night Strangler (1973)
• Bid Time Return (1975); filmed as Somewhere in Time and subsequently reprinted under that title
• What Dreams May Come (1978); filmed as What Dreams May Come
• Earthbound (editorially abridged version published under the pseudonym "Logan Swanson" 1982; restored text published under Matheson's own name 1989)
• Journal of the Gun Years (1992)
• The Gunfight (1993)
• 7 Steps to Midnight (1993)
• Shadow on the Sun (1994)
• Now You See It... (1995)
• The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickock (1996)
• Passion Play (2000)
• Hunger and Thirst (2000)
• Camp Pleasant (2001)
• Abu and the 7 Marvels (2002)
• Hunted Past Reason (2002)
• Come Fygures, Come Shadowes (2003)
• Woman (2006)

Short stories

• "Born of Man and Woman" (1950)
• "Third from the Sun" (1950); adapted as a Twilight Zone episode (1960)
• "The Waker Dreams" (AKA "When the Waker Sleeps") (1950)
• "Blood Son" (1951)
• "Through Channels" (1951)
• "Clothes Make the Man" (1951)
• "Return" (1951)
• "The Thing" (1951)
• "Witch War" (1951)
• "Dress of White Silk" (1951)
• "F---" (AKA "The Foodlegger") (1952)
• "Shipshape Home" (1952)
• "SRL Ad" (1952)
• "Advance Notice" (AKA "Letter to the Editor") (1952)
• "Lover, When You're Near Me" (1952)
• "Brother To The Machine" (1952)
• "To Fit the Crime" (1952)
• "The Wedding" (1953)
• "Wet Straw" (1953)
• "Long Distance Call" (AKA "Sorry, Right Number") (1953)
• "Slaughter House" (1953)
• "Mad House" (1953)
• "The Last Day" (1953)
• "Lazarus II" (1953)
• "Legion of Plotters" (1953)
• "Death Ship" (1953); adapted as a Twilight Zone episode.
• "Disappearing Act" (1953)
• "The Disinheritors" (1953)
• "Dying Room Only" (1953)
• "Full Circle" (1953)
• "Mother by Protest" (AKA "Trespass") (1953)
• "Little Girl Lost" (1953); adapted as a Twilight Zone episode.
• "Being" (1954)
• "The Curious Child" (1954)
• "When Day Is Dun" (1954)
• "Dance of the Dead" (1954)
• "The Man Who Made the World (1954)
• "The Traveller" (1954)
• "The Test" (1954)
• "The Conqueror" (1954)
• "Dear Diary" (1954)
• "The Doll That Does Everything" (1954)
• "Descent" (1954)
• "Miss Stardust" (1955)
• "The Funeral" (1955) Adapted as story segment for Rod Serling's Night Gallery
• "Too Proud to Lose" (1955)
• "One for the Books" (1955)
• "Pattern for Survival" (1955)
• "A Flourish of Strumpets (1956)
• "The Splendid Source" (1956); The basis of the Family Guy episode The Splendid Source.
• "Steel" (1956); adapted as a Twilight Zone episode.
• "The Children of Noah" (1957)
• "A Visit to Santa Claus" (AKA "I'll Make It Look Good," as Logan Swanson) (1957)
• "The Holiday Man" (1957)
• "Old Haunts" (1957)
• "The Distributor" (1958)
• "The Edge" (1958)
• "Lemmings" (1958)
• "Mantage" (1959)
• "Deadline" (1959)
• "The Creeping Terror" (AKA "A Touch of Grapefruit") (1959)
• "No Such Thing as a Vampire" (1959)
• "Big Surprise" (AKA "What Was In The Box") (1959)
• "Crickets" (1960)
• "Day of Reckoning" (AKA "The Faces," "Graveyard Shift") (1960)
• "First Anniversary" (1960)
• "From Shadowed Places" (1960)
• "Finger Prints" (1962)
• "Mute" (1962); adapted as a Twilight Zone episode.
• "The Likeness of Julie" (as Logan Swanson) (1962)
• "The Jazz Machine" (1963)
• "Crescendo" (AKA "Shock Wave") (1963)
• "Girl of My Dreams" (1963)
• "'Tis the Season to Be Jelly" (1963)
• "Deus Ex Machina" (1963)
• "Interest" (1965)
• "A Drink of Water" (1967)
• "Needle in the Heart" (AKA "Therese") (1969)
• "Prey" (1969) (Later adapted to the Zuni Fetish Doll, in the Trilogy of Terror)
• "Button, Button" (1970); (as The Twilight Zone episode in 1986; filmed as The Box (2009)
• "'Til Death Do Us Part" (1970)
• "By Appointment Only" (1970)
• "The Finishing Touches" (1970)
• "Duel" (1971); filmed as Duel (1971)
• "Big Surprise" (1971) Adapted as story segment for Rod Serling's Night Gallery
• "Where There's a Will" (with Richard Christian Matheson) (1980)
• "And Now I'm Waiting" (1983)
• "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (as The Twilight Zone episode in 1963; as segment four of Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1983; first published in 1984)
• "Getting Together" (1986)
• "Buried Talents" (1987)
• "The Near Departed" (1987)
• "Shoo Fly" (1988)
• "Person to Person" (1989)
• "Two O'Clock Session" (1991)
• "The Doll" (as Twilight Zone episode, published as story in 1993)
• "Go West, Young Man" (1993)
• "Gunsight" (1993)
• "Little Jack Cornered" (1993)
• "Of Death and Thirty Minutes" (1993)

Short story collections

• Born of Man and Woman (1954)
• The Shores of Space (1957)
• Shock! (1961)
• Shock 2 (1964)
• Shock 3 (1966)
• Shock Waves (1970) Published as Shock 4 in the UK (1980)
• Button, Button (1970) adapted as a Twilight Zone episode (1986), filmed as The Box (2009)
• Richard Matheson: Collected Stories (1989)
• By the Gun (1993)
• Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (2000)
• Pride with Richard Christian Matheson (2002)
• Duel (2002)
• Offbeat: Uncollected Stories (2002)
• Darker Places (2004)
• Unrealized Dreams (2004)
• Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008) (Tor Books)

Television

• Star Trek: The Original Series: "The Enemy Within" (1966)
• The Martian Chronicles Mini-Series: (1979, 1980)

Nonfiction

• The Path: Metaphysics for the 90s (1993)

Additional reading

• California Sorcery, edited by William F. Nolan and William Schafer