The Reaper's Image
King's early story of an Elizabethan mirror that shows the Grim Reaper.
'The Reaper's Image' is a horror short story by Stephen King, first published in Startling Mystery Stories in 1969 and collected in Skeleton Crew in 1985. It concerns the Delver's Mirror, a rare Elizabethan mirror in which the image of the Grim Reaper is said to appear beside the viewer, and from which many who looked into it have vanished.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Stephen King
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Horror short story
- Published in
- Startling Mystery Stories
- Publication type
- Magazine
- Format
- Print (Periodical & Paperback)
- Published
- Spring 1969
Facts from the source article.
Background
The antique collector Johnson Spangler visits the Samuel Claggert Museum to authenticate the mirror, scoffing at the curator Mr. Carlin's stories, until he sees what he takes for a strip of tape in its corner that is not there. King wrote it at eighteen in the summer of 1966; it was his second story sold commercially, after 'The Glass Floor', and he was paid $35. A revised version appeared in Skeleton Crew. The critic Michael R. Collings judged it a stronger piece of atmospheric horror than anything King had produced before.
More in Works
Elsewhere in Stephen King
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced