<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> In the late 1970s, King began what became a series of interconnected stories about a lone gunslinger, Roland, who pursues the "Man in Black" in an alternate - reality universe that is a cross between J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle - earth and the American Wild West as depicted by Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone in their spaghetti Westerns . The first of these stories, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, was initially published in five installments by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the editorship of Edward L. Ferman, from 1977 to 1981 . The Gunslinger was continued as an eight - book epic series called The Dark Tower, whose books King wrote and published infrequently over four decades . </P> <P> In 1982, the fantasy small - press Donald M. Grant (known for publishing the entire canon of Robert E. Howard) printed these stories for the first time together in hardcover form with color and black - and - white illustrations by fantasy artist Michael Whelan, as The Gunslinger . Each chapter was named for the story previously published in magazine form . King dedicated the hardcover edition to his editor at F&SF, Ed Ferman, who "took a chance on these stories". The original print run was only 10,000 copies, which was, by this time, a comparatively low run for a first printing of a King novel in hardcover . His 1980 novel, Firestarter, had an initial print run in trade hardcover of 100,000 copies, and his 1983 novel, Christine, had a trade hardcover print run of 250,000 copies, both by the much larger publisher Viking . The Gunslinger's initial release was not highly publicized, and only specialty science - fiction and related bookstores carried it on their shelves . The book was generally unavailable in the larger chain stores, except by special order . Rumors spread among avid fans that there was a King book out that few readers knew about, let alone had actually read . When the initial 10,000 copies sold out, Grant printed another 10,000 copies in 1984, but these runs were still far short of the growing demand among fans for this book . Both the first and second printings of The Gunslinger garner premium prices on the collectible book market, notably among avid readers and collectors of Stephen King, horror literature, fantasy literature, and American western literature, and fans of Michael Whelan's artwork . </P>

How many words in stephen king's it