Stephen King is known by many as a bestselling author, but every author is only as good as his or her works. King produced various types of works such as short stories, novels, novellas, screenplays, and comics. His work was "the most important bridge between the horror genre and literary respectability from the late 1960s and 1970s to the present day" (Hoppenstand 3). Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine. He is the second son of Donald Edwin and Nellie Ruth King. When King was two, his father, a merchant marine captain, went out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Nellie, King's mother, raised King and his adoptive older brother David. Nellie's foster family experienced many hardships and moved frequently while she looked for work. The family lived in Maine, Massachusetts, Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. When King was six years old, the family finally settled in Stratford, Connecticut (Hoppenstand 8; Stephen King). In 1958, when King was eleven, the family moved to Durham, Maine. It was here that King discovered he had something in common with his father. In the attic of his aunt and uncle's garage he discovered an old trunk that contained a box of his father's books, including some by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, and some of his father's attempts at writing short stories. King's teachers reported that one of his greatest passions was writing stories, which he began doing at age six (Hoppenstand 8; Stephen King). Stephen King's life influenced his works and was an important source of inspiration, which is evident in his upbringing and early writing experiences, his pseudonym Richard Bachman, and his acc... ...hard Bachman, but that's not true. I know him and I believe he lives in Connecticut”; “I'm not Richard Bachman, I know who he is and I can't say it”; ”Bachman is really a pseudonym, for a decrepit hippie guy living in New Hampshire. I know who he is and I tell you without scruples that he is truly mad” (Wood 148). King attributes the name of his pen name to a book by Richard Matheson that was on his desk and to Bachman-Turner Overdrive that he was playing on the radio when his publisher called to ask what pen name he wanted to use (Wood 148). King has become familiar even to those who have not read any of his works. Although he tries to maintain a certain degree of privacy for himself and his family, he has a high public profile. King made headlines in 1999 when he was hit by a van while out for his daily walk and suffered near-fatal injuries.