Publication Order of Blue Rose Trilogy Books
| Koko | 1988 |
| Mystery | 1990 |
| The Throat | 1993 |
Publication Order of Talisman Books
| The Talisman (With: Stephen King) | 1984 |
| Black House (With: Stephen King) | 2001 |
| Other Worlds Than These (With: Stephen King) | 2026 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Marriages | 1973 |
| Julia | 1975 |
| If You Could See Me Now | 1977 |
| Ghost Story | 1979 |
| Shadowland | 1980 |
| Floating Dragon | 1982 |
| Under Venus | 1984 |
| The Hellfire Club | 1996 |
| Mr. X | 1999 |
| Lost Boy, Lost Girl | 2003 |
| In the Night Room | 2004 |
| A Dark Matter | 2010 |
| Wreckage | 2025 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| The General’s Wife | 1982 |
| Mrs. God | 1990 |
| Pork Pie Hat | 1999 |
| A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter | 2010 |
| The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine | 2011 |
| The Buffalo Hunter | 2012 |
| Perdido | 2015 |
| The Process (Is a Process All Its Own) | 2017 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| Houses Without Doors | 1990 |
| Magic Terror | 2000 |
| 5 Stories | 2007 |
| The Juniper Tree and Other Blue Rose Stories | 2010 |
| Interior Darkness | 2016 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Sides | 2007 |
About Peter Straub
Peter Straub (1943 to 2022) was an American novelist and poet, known for horror and supernatural fiction such as “Ghost Story” and for “The Talisman”, which he wrote with Stephen King. His work won the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award and the International Horror Guild Award.
Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 2 March 1943. At the age of seven he was hit by a car and spent several months in hospital. He took a degree in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1965 and a master’s at Columbia a year later, then taught English at his old school, Milwaukee Country Day. In 1969 he moved to Dublin to work on a doctorate and began to write seriously. He and his family lived in Dublin until 1972, in London until 1979 and in the New York area after that.
His first two novels, “Marriages” and “Under Venus”, were mainstream fiction. He turned to the supernatural with “Julia” (1975), filmed in 1977 as “Full Circle”, and “If You Could See Me Now” (1977). His fifth novel, “Ghost Story” (1979), in which a writer comes to a small town in upstate New York and meets a group of old men who call themselves the Chowder Society, became a national bestseller and a 1981 film starring Fred Astaire. “Floating Dragon” won the British Fantasy Award.
“The Talisman” (1984) follows twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer into a place called the Territories in search of an object that can save his dying mother. Straub and King returned to Jack as an adult in “Black House” (2001). In between came the Blue Rose trilogy of mysteries: “Koko” (1988), about Vietnam veterans on the trail of a killer, which won the World Fantasy Award, “Mystery” (1990) and “The Throat” (1993).
“Mr. X”, “Lost Boy, Lost Girl”, “In the Night Room” and his last completed novel, “A Dark Matter” (2010), all won the Bram Stoker Award for best novel. Straub died in New York on 4 September 2022, aged 79. His unfinished novel “Wreckage” was issued in a limited edition by Subterranean Press in 2025, and “Other Worlds Than These”, the third Jack Sawyer book, which King wrote alone using material Straub had prepared, was published by Scribner on 6 October 2026.
Photo: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).