Stephen King used Derry in one of his stories years before

The town of Derry, Maine is synonymous with Stephen King’s “IT,” and for good reason. This coulrophobia-inducing terror book is one of The best books of the kingand the reason so many readers are scared by Pennywise the Clown and his supernatural powers. However, “IT” is not the first novel to feature the cursed city, as King debuted it in a short story published in the anthology “A Fantasy Reader: The Seventh World Fantasy Convention Book” in 1981.

Technically, however, Derry’s first appearance is canonical to his 1986 novel about the aforementioned shapeshifting entity that torments children and lives in the sewers. King’s story, “The Bird and the Album” (later renamed “The Album”), eventually became the 14th chapter of “IT”. The author was working on his novel at the time the anthology was released, but it gave readers a taste of what was to come years later.

That said, there are some differences between “IT” and the story published in the anthology that preceded it. Both iterations chronicle the experiences of an adult Mike Hanlon, who opens a refrigerator only to be tormented by the severed head of a young Stanley Uris (aka Pennywise playing tricks). However, “A Fantasy Reader” version sees Stan’s head antagonizing Mike, a black man, with racial slurs, which are not present in the novel.

This collection of stories marked the world’s first introduction to Derry on the page, and it has since become an important part of Stephen King’s universe. In fact, the author has referenced Derry in other stories that haunted readers long before “IT” came along.

Some moviegoers might have been surprised to see Derry appears in the adaptation of Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man”but it’s logical. You see, Derry appears in the author’s literary version of the dystopian story, as protagonist Ben Richards goes there to catch a flight. Unfortunately, he doesn’t come across Pennywise along the way, but he has other problems to deal with at the time.

After “The Running Man,” King slipped Derry cameos and/or mentions of the city into “The Body,” “Pet Sematary” and a few short stories from the “Skeleton Crew” collection. Since “A Fantasy Reader: The Seventh World Fantasy Convention Book” is also very obscure (rumor has it that only 1,000 copies in print exist), the majority of King’s millions of readers probably associate Derry’s debut with “The Running Man.”

This gruesome city is one of many pockets that King’s stories have regularly visited in his sprawling, interconnected multiverse, and he’s gotten plenty of mileage out of it since 1981. Plus, the setting has inspired major films and TV shows, most recently HBO’s “Welcome to Derry,” which serves as a prequel to the “IT” films.