Several of his stories, like 'Third from the Sun' (1950), 'Deadline' (1959) and 'Button, Button' (1970) are simple sketches with twist endings others, like 'Trespass' (1953), 'Being' (1954) and 'Mute' (1962) explore their characters' dilemmas over twenty or thirty pages. Between 19, Matheson produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres. The tale of a monstrous child chained in its parents' cellar, it was told in the first person as the creature's diary (in poignantly non-idiomatic English) and immediately made Matheson famous. His first short story, 'Born of Man and Woman,' appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950. He married in 1952 and has four children, three of whom ( Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays.

In 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and moved to California in 1951. He then entered the military and spent World War II as an infantry soldier. Hell House, which inspired the 1973 film The Legend of Hell House, is Matheson's most frightening and shocking book and an acknowledged classic of the genre.Born in Allendale, New Jersey to Norwegian immigrant parents, Matheson was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943.

For one night, they will investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townsfolk refer to it as the Hell House. A wealthy publisher, brooding over his impending death, has paid a physicist and two mediums to establish the facts of life after death once and for all. But now, a new investigation has been launched, bringing four strangers to Belasco House in search of the ultimate secrets of life and death. All previous attempts to probe its mysteries have ended in murder, suicide, or insanity.

Regarded as the Mount Everest of haunted houses, its shadowed walls have witnessed scenes of unimaginable horror and depravity. It looms over the rest the way the mountains loom over the foothills.' - Stephen KingFrom the author of I Am Legend comes Hell House, the basis for the supernatural horror film starring Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill.įor over twenty years, Belasco House has stood empty. 'Hell House is the scariest haunted house novel ever written.

Hell House by Richard Matheson