It (novel)

"It (book)" redirects here. For the Inger Christensen book, see It (Christensen book).

It
First edition cover
Author(s)	Stephen King
Cover artist	Bob Giusti, illustration Amy Hill, lettering
Country	United States
Genre(s)	Horror novel
Publisher	Viking
Publication date	September 15, 1986
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	1138
ISBN	0-670-81302-8

It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows the exploits of seven children as they are terrorized by an eponymous being, which exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It" primarily appears in the form of a clown in order to attract its preferred prey of young children. The novel is told through narratives alternating between two time periods, and is largely told in the third-person omniscient mode. It deals with themes which would eventually become King staples: the power of memory, childhood trauma, and the ugliness lurking behind a façade of traditional small-town values. The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1987, and received nominations for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards that same year. Publishers Weekly listed It as the best-selling book in the United States in 1986.

Plot

1957-1958

In October 1957, a six year old boy named George Denbrough chases his paper boat into a storm drain. To his surprise, the boat is caught in the sewer by Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The clown offers him the boat and a balloon, then kills George when he reaches into the drain to retrieve his boat from Pennywise's hand.

Eight months later, during the summer of 1958, seven children are drawn together as a group through a multitude of events. Ben Hanscom, an overweight boy, flees from local bullies, Henry Bowers, Vic Criss and Belch Huggins who attempt to carve Henry’s name into his belly using Henry's ivory handled flick knife. While running, he comes across Bill Denbrough, George's older brother, who has a stutter, and Eddie Kaspbrak, an asthmatic boy, who are attempting to make a dam in an undeveloped, jungle-like part of Derry called the Barrens. Ben, with an inclination toward architecture, helps the two improve the dam and soon working with Bill, Ben and Eddie are Richie Tozier, a loud-mouthed boy with thick glasses, and Stan Uris, a boy whose Jewish ancestry makes him a frequent target of hazing. All five of the boys have been plagued by Henry Bowers in the past.

Later on, at his home, Bill looks at a picture of George that turns and winks at him. When he recounts his story to his friends, Ben admits to having seen (and been nearly seized by) a mummy the previous January, and Eddie recounts being attacked by a leper at an abandoned house. Richie scoffs at the stories, but he and Bill see a picture of Pennywise in George's yearbook that comes to life as Georgie’s had. Bill takes his father's pistol and goes with Richie to the abandoned house, thinking that the person behind the supernatural events and the recent string of killings may be there. At the house the two boys are attacked by It, with Bill perceiving It as Pennywise and Richie as a werewolf, and both barely escape with their lives on Bill’s bicycle (“Silver”). A few days later, while running from Henry and his gang, Richie encounters and is attacked by It in the form of Paul Bunyan, though Richie manages to escape.

Meanwhile, Beverly Marsh, a girl from the poor side of town with an abusive father, hears voices of dead children in the drain and witnesses a fountain of blood spurt from the sink and stains the floor and wall paper. Her father doesn't see anything. When she becomes friends with Ben, Eddie and Stan, she tells them about the blood and they help her clean up the blood. Stan later admits that in earlier spring, he witnessed waterlogged corpses in the town’s standpipe.

As the summer goes on, the six kids realize that the entity they’re up against is extremely powerful. As they are discussing this, a black boy named Mike Hanlon is being chased by Henry, Vic, Belch and two others, Peter Gordon and Moose Sadler. Henry chases Mike right to where the now-self-proclaimed Losers’ Club resides, and a rock fight ensues between the two gangs with the Losers’ Club ending up as the winner. Henry swears to kill them all but quickly flees away. Mike becomes the new and last child into the club. They tell Mike about It, and as he recounts a story of being chased by an enormous, trailer-sized bird in a field, he brings the Losers an album of his father's old pictures of Derry. In one of them, Pennywise appears and threatens to kill all of the Losers. Through research, Bill discovers an ancient ritual known as the Ritual of Chüd, in which a monster and mortal lock tongues and attempt to make the other laugh. Bill believes this ritual will allow them to defeat and kill It. With the group at a loss for what to do, Ben comes up with the idea of an old Indian smoke lodge ritual to induce visions and give guidance. When the idea is put into practice, Richie and Mike hallucinate (although the event is implied to be akin to time travel), see It arrive on Earth in prehistoric times and realize It has been here for millions of years. They express doubt over their ability to battle the monster.

Later, while Eddie is walking home from the pharmacy, Henry, Vic, Moose and a psychotic boy named Patrick Hockstetter, ambush and attack him. Henry breaks Eddie's arm in retaliation for the rock fight. When Patrick tries to dump dead bodies of animals he suffocated out of a refrigerator, he is killed by It in the form of flying leeches (his only true fear) infesting the refrigerator, which Beverly partially sees. At first believing that it is all fake, Beverly soon learns otherwise when It's leech form attacks her, one biting her, though she manages to escape.

After buying a first-aid kit and treating Beverly's wound, the Losers return to the refrigerator and discover a message from It written in Patrick's blood, warning them to stop before It kills them. Filled with rage, Bill vows to kill It at any cost.

After Eddie is released from the hospital, the Losers get together and Ben makes two slugs out of silver, believing the cinematic convention that silver will kill monsters. They go back to the abandoned house, where It attacks them in werewolf form, primarily focusing its efforts on Bill, their leader. After savagely slashing Ben across the abdomen when he tried to defend Bill, It is driven away after being injured by the silver slugs, but not before vowing to kill them all.

Later, in mid-August, Henry, whose sanity had been steadily eroding the entire summer, is given a switchblade knife by Pennywise. After murdering his crazed and abusive father, Henry, seeming to be both in a trance and in a wildly lunatic state, takes Vic and Belch to the Barrens and attacks the Losers, driving them into the sewers. The three follow them. Under Derry, It attacks the bullies in the form of Frankenstein's monster, decapitating Vic and mutilating Belch's face, with Henry managing to escape. The Losers press on and confront It in the form of a giant eye, which they successfully repel. They finally come upon Its lair, where it resides in the form of a giant spider, and, in what appears to be the Ritual of Chüd, the Losers encounter It and its natural enemy, The Turtle. Bill defeats It with some advice from The Turtle and It flees deeper into Its lair. The Losers then gradually realize that they are lost in the sewers, and that with their common enemy having fled they have lost their purpose as a group, and begin to succumb to panic. In order to stop the group from panicking, Beverly has sexual intercourse with each of the boys. The gang finally escape from the sewers, emerging at sunset. Stan cuts their palms with a shard of a Coke bottle and the seven make a blood oath to return to Derry if It should ever return.

1984–1985

In July 1984, a man named Adrian Mellon is allegedly thrown off a bridge by a group of youths. They are framed and arrested for murder when Adrian's mutilated corpse is found, though they didn't kill him. One of the teens, Chris Unwin claims that they saw a clown kill Adrian underneath the bridge. When a series of violent child-murders following Adrian's death hit Derry, Mike, now the town’s librarian and the only one of the Losers’ Club to remain in Derry, calls up his six friends and reminds them of their childhood promise to return. Bill is now a well-known writer of horror novels, living in England and married to an actress called Audra; Beverly is in the fashion industry and very successful but married to an abusive man called Tom Rogan; Eddie runs a limousine rental company and is married to a woman exactly like his mother; Richie is a professional comedian with a radio show and talk show; Ben, now thin is a successful architect in Nebraska; and Stan is an accountant married to a woman called Patty. Five of them return to Derry with only the dimmest awareness of why they are doing so, having almost completely forgotten virtually every aspect of their childhood (most notably their encounter with It). Stan, who is implied to still remember the entire thing (or at least does when Mike contacts him) slits his wrists while taking a bath, writing the word IT in his blood on the shower wall with his dying strength.

The remaining Losers’ Club meets at a Chinese restaurant for dinner, where, after a long meal and stories from the intervening years, Mike enlightens them to the apparent nature of It, gleaned from a large amount of research he has done himself: It awakens once roughly every twenty-seven years for twelve to sixteen months at a time to feed on children before going into slumber again. He suggests that, due directly to their intervention in the summer of 1958, they injured It so badly that the cycle, which usually came to an end in the winter months of the year, stopped abruptly and prematurely in August. The group holds a vote in which they decided to attempt to kill It once and for all. Mike suggests that before deciding what exactly to do, each Loser takes a walk around Derry to become re-acquainted with their childhood home, and also decides not to tell them anymore and allow them to remember what occurred on their own, fearing that they may commit suicide as Stan had done if they discover what happened before they are ready to remember it all. As they finish the meal, their fortune cookies are revealed to have a multitude of disgusting things inside of them, such as a human eye, courtesy of It.

While walking around Derry, many of the Losers witness manifestations of It. Ben goes to the library, his favorite place in Derry as a child, and sees It, first as Pennywise and then as a vampire. Eddie goes to an old baseball field and is attacked by It in the form of the leper that pursued him in his youth. Beverly goes back to her father's house and is greeted warmly by a kindly old woman who turns out to be It who then takes the form of her father. Richie goes to a statue of Paul Bunyan and It appears to him there after Richie recalls that It tried to kill him in the form of the statue back in 1958. The four all escape danger. Bill, while not seeing It, does find his old childhood bike in a junk shop, remembering how it saved his and Richie’s lives. He purchases it and takes it to Mike’s home to fix it up.

Unknown to the Losers, three other people are also converging on Derry: Bill's worried wife, Audra Phillips; Beverly's abusive husband, Tom Rogan; and Henry Bowers, who is driven by It to escape the mental institution where he resides, having been convicted for the murder of his father and the children killed by It (including Belch, Victor, and Patrick) back in 1958.

The Losers meet at Mike’s library after closing time and reminisce about the summer of 1958. Afterwards, the Losers leave for their hotel rooms. Mike stays at the Library a little longer and is confronted by Henry. After Mike briefly taunts Henry, stating that Pennywise will most likely kill him after he kills the Losers, they fight and Henry stabs him in the leg. Mike badly injures Henry with a letter opener but Henry is able to escape, and Mike, using his belt as a tourniquet, calls the hospital and successfully gets help despite Pennywise's attempts to block him. Henry, with the guidance of It (in the form of Belch’s reanimated corpse) goes to the hotel and attacks Eddie. Henry successfully breaks into Eddie’s room, but Eddie manages to disarm and kill Henry by impaling him with a broken glass bottle.

Meanwhile, It gets Tom Rogan to kidnap Audra. Tom brings Audra to It’s lair under the city. Upon perceiving It in true form (“the deadlights”), Audra becomes catatonic and Tom drops dead in shock. Bill, Beverly, Richie, Eddie and Ben, after calling the library and finding out that Mike may be near death and understanding that the town, which is essentially under the control of It, will not help them, realize that they are being forced into another confrontation with It. They descend into the sewers.

While in the sewers, the remaining Losers use their strength as a group to send energy to a hospitalized Mike, who fights off a nurse that is under the control of It. Later, deep within the sewers, It appears as George but Bill overcomes the illusion. They reach It’s lair again. Bill and Richie engage It in the Ritual of Chüd again and manage to severely injure It. Eddie helps them and saves their lives, but he is killed by It in the process, having his arm bitten off, eventually bleeding to death. Beverly stays with Eddie and the traumatized Audra, who has been woven into a giant spider web by It’s spider form. When Bill, Ben and Richie get to It's lair, they discover It has laid eggs and they're about to hatch. Ben stays behind to destroy the eggs while Bill and Richie chase down It. Bill and Richie follow It deeper into the cavern and attack It. After Richie wounds It with his voices and fists, Bill crushes It's heart between his hands, finally killing the monster. At the same time a storm sweeps through Derry and the downtown area collapses. Later, Mike, writing in a journal, concludes that Derry is finally dying.

The novel ends with the various Losers returning home and their old lives. As a sign that It really is dead and a watchman is no longer needed, Mike’s memory of the events of the book also begin to fade, much to his relief. Ben and Beverly leave together, Richie heads back to his DJ career and Bill is the last to leave Derry. Before he goes, he takes Audra, who is still catatonic, for a ride on Bill's bike, Silver, hoping that they can beat her catatonia the same way he and the rest of the Losers beat It for the first time in 1958. They succeed, and the story ends with Bill musing over his forgotten childhood and the friends he shared it with.

Characters

The Losers' Club

The Losers are the children who are united by their unhappy lives, their misery at being the victims of bullying by Henry Bowers and their eventual struggle to overcome It.

• William "Bill" Denbrough: Also known as "Stuttering Bill" and "Big Bill", he gets his nickname from his bad stuttering issue, which became much more severe after his brother's death; although his mother attributes it to a car accident that occurred when Bill was three, it is implied to be more of a psychological issue than a physical one. His brother George was killed by It in 1957. Bill feels slightly guilty about the murder, because he'd been the one who sent George outside to play and made him the paper boat which George was tempted into the sewers with. Ever since George died, Bill has been partially ignored by his parents who also blamed him for his brother's death. Beverly Marsh develops an intense crush on him during their time in the Losers Club. He is the most determined and resourceful of the Losers and is the one who, both in 1958 and 1985, confronts It in the Realm of Chüd and eventually destroys It. As an adult, he marries Audra Phillips, a successful actress bearing a strong resemblance to Bev. As with other King characters, Paul Sheldon, Ben Mears, Mike Noonan, Sue Snell, Mort Rainey, Jack Swayer and several others, Bill is a famous writer.

• Benjamin "Ben" Hanscom: He was dubbed "Haystack" by Richie, after the professional wrestler Haystack Calhoun. Because of his obesity, he has become a frequent victim of Henry Bowers, who once used a Buck knife to try to carve his name into his abdomen (he managed an unfinished "H" before Ben escaped). His father died in a plane crash in the army. He also develops a crush on Beverly Marsh and the two leave Derry together after the 1985 defeat of It. As he grows up, he sheds his excess weight and becomes an architect. His mechanical skills become useful to the Losers, from making two silver slugs to building an underground clubhouse where Mike and Richie have a vision of Its cosmic crash into the site which would later become Derry, Maine.

• Beverly "Bev" Marsh (later Rogan): The only female in the group, she is tomboyish and is constantly abused by her parents. Beverly is an attractive,redheaded girl from the poorest part of Derry. She has an abusive father who beats her regularly. She develops a crush on Bill Denbrough and her skill with a slingshot is a key factor in battling It. All the boys are described as being fond of Beverly; at some point, each has romantic feelings for her. As a child, her father abused her while using his constant catch phrase, "I worry about you, Bevvy. Sometimes I worry a lot." As an adult, she becomes a successful fashion designer, but endures several abusive relationships, culminating in her marriage to Tom Rogan, who sees her as a sex object and disapproves of her chain smoking, using it as an excuse to beat her up. She subsequently departs Derry with Ben following the death of her husband (who was used by It to capture Audra).

• Richard "Richie" Tozier: Known as "Trashmouth", Richie is the Losers' most lighthearted member, always cracking jokes and doing impersonations or "Voices", which prove very powerful weapons against It. He is "too intelligent for his own good" and channels his boredom in hyper-active wisecracking, to the point of being self-destructive. His flippant remark to Henry Bowers leads to almost getting beaten up by Henry and his friends. His childhood trauma stemmed from his rapid-fire insults being compulsive and almost subconsciously triggered. He is the most devoted to keeping the group together as he sees 7 as a magical number and believes the group should have no more, no less. In adulthood, he is a successful disc jockey. As the DJ, he uses his once-annoying and unrealistic voices as one of his main attractions. These voices became a weapon of the Losers against It, when they find out It could be hurt by Richie's Voices. He has bad eyesight and wears thick glasses as a child, but changes to contact lenses as an adult.

• Edward "Eddie" Kaspbrak: Eddie is a frail hypochondriac whose asthma is psychosomatic. At one point in the story the man who runs the pharmacy reveals to the reader that he had a placebo and that his medicine is nothing but water. He has a worrying, domineering mother who, ever since his father died, has used Munchausen syndrome by proxy to bully him into caring for her. She is the root of his mental problems and has convinced him he has asthma. Eddie is considered the most physically fragile member of the group, although his gym teacher, Coach Black, states that Eddie "loves to play games and runs quite fast". Richie sometimes calls him "Eds", which he hates (as is demonstrated when It bites off Eddie's arm and his dying words are to Richie, who calls him "Eds": "Richie, don't call me Eds. You know I...I... [without finishing his sentence, "I hate it when you call me that"]"). He is a Methodist, though his family was strict Polish Catholic two generations before Eddie. When Henry and his friends break his arm and his mother tries to prevent the Losers from visiting Eddie in the hospital, he finally stands up to his mother and tells her that he is no longer the helpless kid she thinks he is. He eventually runs a successful limousine business but is married to a woman (Myra) very similar to his mom. He also finds the strength to defend himself from Henry Bowers, eventually killing him in self-defense with a broken bottle, even though in the fight his arm is re-broken in the same spot Henry broke it in a scuffle when they were kids. He bleeds to death in the sewers after his arm is bitten off, ultimately dying in the gang's arms.

• Michael "Mike" Hanlon: Mike is the last to join the Losers. He is the only African American child in the group. When he is racially persecuted by Henry Bowers, the Losers fight back against Bowers in a massive rock fight. Mike is the only one of the Losers to stay behind in Derry (and thus the only one to retain his memory of the events of 1958) and becomes the town librarian. He is the one who beckons the others back when the killings begin again in 1985. His father kept an album filled with photos that were important to Derry's history, including several of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Through the knowledge he acquires of Derry and It, he becomes an amateur historian of the town. He is seriously wounded by Henry Bowers and nearly dies. He later recovers from his wounds but like the others starts to lose his memory of the experience. It was later revealed in Insomnia that Mike continued as a librarian and was the boss of one of that book's primary protagonists in 1993.

• Stanley "Stan" Uris: Also known as "Stan the Man", Stan is a skeptical, bookish Jewish member of the club. He admits that his family takes a relaxed approach to their faith, rather than practicing it devoutly. Logic, order, and cleanliness are deeply ingrained in his psyche. He is the least willing to accept that It actually exists and relies on logic more than anything else. Stan, much like Mike, is racially persecuted by Henry. As a child his main hobby was birdwatching. He later becomes a partner in a large Atlanta-based accounting firm and marries Patty Blum, a teacher. However, upon receiving Mike's phone call, he commits suicide by slitting his wrists in the bathtub and writing "IT" in his blood on the wall. He chose death over returning to Derry to face the ancient terror despite being the one to slice the Losers' palms in a blood oath. It is also implied in the book that Stan remembers more about the children's encounters with It than the others do, sometimes commenting about the Turtle and other events from his time in Derry, though he claims that he doesn't remember what those phrases mean. It can be implied throughout the story that he was psychic to a mild degree (accurately predicting which job his wife should apply for, a higher sensitivity to Its activities, frequent references from the other losers to his "ordered mind"). Besides blaming It for Georgie's death, Bill also blames It for Stan's death, saying in one part of the novel that It killed "Stan the Man".

It

A mysterious entity, It is a monster of unknown origin which preys on Derry's children every three decades, stating It finds the fear in children akin to "salt(ing) the meat". Among Its powers is shape shifting into a form that induces fear while killing the victim, normally assuming the form of a fanged clown and calling itself "Pennywise the Dancing Clown", The Evil Clown who was designed after Bozo, Clarabell and Ronald McDonald. It can also manipulate people into doing Its bidding, either by assuming a form most familiar to them or promising them their desires. Thus, having control over what happens in Derry, many of the child murders It commits are never solved, as the adults of Derry either act as though nothing is happening or have forgotten about It. Its true form as perceived by the human eye is that of a giant spider that houses Its essence: namely writhing orange lights (termed "Deadlights"), looking directly into which can either kill a person or drive them insane.

Its awakening and return to hibernation mark the greatest instances of violence during Its time awake, such as the disappearance of over three hundred settlers from Derry Township in 1740–43. During the 1950s, It awoke during a great storm which flooded part of the city and murdered George Denbrough before going on a feeding spree. However, when the Losers' Club forced It to return to an early hibernation when heavily wounded by the young Bill Denbrough in the first Ritual of Chüd. As the story opens, It awakens when three young bullies beat up a young homosexual couple, Adrian Mellon and Don Hagarty, with It killing the former after he is thrown off a bridge. When the adult members of the Losers' Club gathered, seeing them to be a threat, It resolved to drive them away through both Its illusions and using Henry Bowers, the Losers's long-time childhood bully. However, with Stan committing suicide and Mike hospitalized, Bill, Richie, Beverly, Eddie and Ben managed to confront Its spider form after It arranged to have Audra in its possession. It was finally destroyed in the second Ritual of Chüd with an enormous storm that damages the downtown part of Derry to signify Its death.

Other characters

• Henry Bowers: As the novel's secondary antagonist, Henry is the sadistic, crazed, neighborhood bully who torments the Losers and other kids, both male and female, ceaselessly throughout the summer of 1958. The novel portrays him as a hateful and violent boy. Henry's sanity slowly deteriorates throughout the summer due to the influence of It and abuse from his equally crazy father, Butch Bowers. He is shown to be a racist as well as his father, and shares in his father's intense hatred for the Hanlon family, the only black family in Derry, in addition to being a misogynist, sexist, homophobe, and anti-semite. He inflicts many acts of violence and humiliation upon the Losers during and before the summer of '58, such as partially carving his name onto Ben Hanscom's stomach, which he never finishes, killing Mike Hanlon's dog and bathing him in mud in order to make him a "tar baby", breaking Eddie Kaspbrak's arm, breaking Richie Tozier's glasses numerous times, and white-washing Stan Uris' face in snow until it bleeds. His deteriorating sanity becomes apparent during his attacks on Bill and Beverly: with the former, he pushed a man to the ground and threatened him into going back inside a building when the man tried to stand up for Bill after Henry tried to drown Bill in a dunk tank and he also kicked out an old lady's taillight when she tried to stand up for Beverly. After a violent rockfight in early July, Henry becomes more and more sadistic until he eventually murders his father in mid-August with a switchblade provided by It and tries to kill the Losers. He follows them into the town sewers with his friends Victor Criss and Reginald "Belch" Huggins, only to encounter It in the form of Frankenstein's monster, who decapitates Victor and mutilates Belch's face, after which Henry escapes. Henry fails to kill any of the Losers, but he eventually finds his way out of the sewers and his hair turns white from the shock of witnessing his friends being slaughtered and also seeing It in its true form, which drives him completely insane. He is convicted for the murder of his father and is framed for most of It's murders throughout the summer. He is placed in an insane asylum and remains there until May 29, 1985, when he escapes with It's assistance, and heads back to Derry to attempt to murder the Losers once more. After critically wounding Mike in the town library and being injured himself in the process, Henry then goes to the hotel where most of the Losers are staying, and finds Eddie's room first, only to be killed in the confrontation with Eddie.

• Victor "Vic" Criss: Victor "Vic" Criss is a bully, and one of Henry's sidekicks. Among Henry's gang, Vic is the only one who truly realizes Henry's sanity, and becomes more and more reluctant to hang around Henry. The novel describes Vic as having good morals despite helping Henry toment the Losers. When he plays baseball (as believed to be an excellent baseball pitcher) or makes comments and jokes, he usually uses the word "fucking" or violence. In early August, while in the Tracker Brothers store, Vic warns the Losers of Henry's deteriorating sanity. He also almost approaches the Losers to join them, but decides against it. By doing this, he seals his fate and joins Henry and Belch in following the Losers into the sewers, where the three encounter It in the form of Frankenstein's monster, who kills Vic by decapitating him. His corpse along with Belch's is later discovered by the adult Losers when they go to face It for the final time.

• Reginald "Belch" Huggins: Reginald "Belch" Huggins is another sidekick of Henry's, and earned his nickname due to his ability to belch on command. He is very big for his age, being six feet tall at twelve years old. Belch is considered stupid by most people, which he makes up for in physical strength and his fierce loyalty to his friends, especially Henry. He is believed to be a professional baseball batter. Belch follows Henry and Vic into the sewers to murder the Losers, only to encounter It in the form of Frankenstein's monster. After It kills Vic and goes after Henry, Belch defends him and attacks It. Henry leaves Belch behind and It overpowers him and kills him by mutilating his face. His corpse along with Vic's is later discovered by the adult Losers when they go to face It for the final time.

• Patrick Hockstetter: Patrick Hockstetter is a psychopathic and solipsistic bully who is part of Henry's gang. Patrick keeps a pencil box full of dead flies, which he kills with his ruler, and shows it to other students. He makes sexual advances to Henry at one point. He also takes small, usually injured animals and locks them in a broken refrigerator in a junkyard, and leaves them there to die. Along with killing animals, Patrick has also murdered his infant brother, Avery, by suffocation when he was five years old. When alone with Henry after lighting farts with him and his gang one July afternoon in 1958, Patrick gives Henry a handjob and offers to give him oral sex, which snaps Henry out of his daze and prompts him to punch Patrick in the mouth. Henry then reveals that he knows about Patrick's refrigerator, and threatens to tell everyone about it if Patrick tells about the handjob. Once Henry has left, Patrick opens the refrigerator to dispose of the animal corpses but is attacked by a swarm of flying leeches, his greatest fear. The swarm sucks Partick's blood leaving large holes all over his body, which causes him to slowly lose consciousness as he is dragged away by It. When he awakens, It begins to feed on him. His corpse is later discovered by the Losers when they go into the sewers to face It for the first time.

• Edward "Eddie" Corcoran: Eddie Corcoran is a classmate of the Losers Club and Henry's gang. Like Beverly Marsh, Eddie and his younger brother Dorsey are victims of child abuse by their stepfather, Richard Macklin. However, unlike Beverly's father, who proved to be a loving and caring father at times, Eddie's stepfather would often beat them brutally and without warning, at one point throwing Eddie into a coat rack with enough force to make him Urinate Blood for two weeks simply for accidentally slamming the door while he was sleeping. In May 1957, Richard hit Dorsey in the back of the head with a hammer, accidentally killing him, which he covered up to look like an accident. Two days before summer vacation in June 1958, Eddie runs away from home and decides to rest in the park. However, using Dorsey's form, It approaches Eddie and chases after him before assuming the form of the gillman to kill him. Eddie is the only child who is actually shown getting killed by It besides George Denbrough and Patrick Hockstetter.

• Adrian Mellon: Adrian Mellon is a young homosexual man in Derry. He grows fond of the town, despite its violently homophobic mindset, and only to leave to please his boyfriend, Don Hagarty. Before leaving, however, the two attend a town fair in July 1984, and on the way home, they are harassed by three homophobic youths. The three attack them, Adrian especially because of a hat he won at the fair, and throw him over a canal. When he hits the bottom, Adrian is attacked by Pennywise as It bites into his armpit, and drags him away to kill. Though Don and one of the bullies, Chris Unwin, witnessed this, no mention of Pennywise is made at the trial and nobody mentions a clown.

• Will Hanlon: Will Hanlon is the father of Mike Hanlon. While dying of cancer in 1962, he tells Mike about his experiences in the U.S. Air Force in the 1920s and about establishing the Black Spot, a club started by Will and his black Air Force buddies and originally meant exclusively for black members, but gradually began accepting members of other races as well. He recounts how, in the fall of 1930, the club was burned down by a group of Maine Legion of White Decency members, causing numerous deaths. He also tells Mike that he witnessed a giant bird—the same bird that nearly killed Mike in 1958—carry off a Legion of White Decency member and fly away with him in its talons.

• Mr. Keene: Mr. Norbert Keene was the owner and operator of the Center Street Drug Store for fifty years from 1925 to 1975. He administers Eddie's asthma medication and later reveals to him that it's only a placebo. Many years later, Mike interviews him and Mr. Keene tells him the story of the Bradley Gang, a group of outlaws who were hiding out in Maine after several bank robberies in the midwest. He tells Mike that, in 1929, a year before the fire at the Black Spot, the entire gang was murdered by Derry residents when stopping through town to buy ammunition. Mr. Keene says that rather than covering up the event, the whole town instead pretended that it never occurred, including police Chief Jim Sullivan, who even took part in the slayings. Finally, Mr. Keene mentions seeing a clown participating in the shooting, but that it was wearing farmer's attire rather than a traditional clown suit. He also points out that even though the Sun was out, the clown cast no shadow.

• Tom Rogan: The insane, abusive, violent and sadistic husband of Beverly Marsh. Tom has a very predatory view of women, and he thrives on the control he has over his vulnerable wife. When Beverly tries to leave for Derry, he refuses to let her, whipping her. Tom is surprised when the normally docile Beverly fights back, and almost kills him, before leaving for Derry. Tom, desperate to find his wife, beats one of her friends until he finds out that Beverly is in Derry. Tom goes to Derry with the intent to kill Beverly, and possibly her "writer friend" Bill Denbrough, whom Tom (correctly) assumes she is sleeping with. When he gets there, It uses Tom to capture Audra Phillips and bring her to Its lair under the city. Upon seeing It in its true form, Tom drops dead in shock and gets eaten by It.

• Audra Phillips: Bill Denbrough's wife who is a famous actress. She and Bill have an occasional working relationship: she is set to star in an adaptation of a novel he wrote. When Bill leaves for Derry, he strongly urges Audra to remain in England, and although she agrees, she leaves the next day to follow him. When she makes it to Derry, It uses Tom Rogan to capture her, and uses her as bait to lure Bill Denbrough. When the Losers defeat It once and for all, they rescue Audra, but she is catatonic. The book ends with Bill using the last of his childhood to bring her out of the coma. Audra has a strong physical resemblance to the adult Beverly Marsh.

• George Denbrough: The first character introduced in the book, George is Bill's younger brother. He is a stereotypical child, innocent and curious. He is killed when It, appearing as Pennywise, rips off his arm. George's death is the first in the fall of 1957 and it is what drives Bill to defeat It. Although in 1958, It threatens to appear to Bill as George, It never does so until 1985 (excluding Its appearance before Bill in Georgie's room, when It causes George's school photo to leer and wink at him). When Bill sees It as George, he works through his grief and overcomes Its ruse.

• Peter Gordon: A well-off friend of Henry's that lives on West Broadway, who thinks of chasing Mike Hanlon as a game, though Henry's crazed and increasingly violent behavior (such as attempting to outright kill Mike with cherry bombs and M-80s) begins to alienate him. He is also the boyfriend of an attractive girl named Marcia Fadden. When school goes out for the summer, Peter (menacly) invites Ben Hanscom to play baseball with him and while on a date with Marcia, he insults the Losers at the movies. Like Vic Criss, he also realizes Henry's eroding sanity. He is never seen again after the rock fight. Eddie assumes that Henry kicked him out of his gang because he was the first to run away from the fight. It is implied that he was eventually killed by It as it is recounted that all of Henry's friends and ex-friends were killed by It.

• Claude Heroux: An Acadian logger who was active in a Union movement in the early 1900s around Derry. After several Union organizers were killed and narrowly escaping death, he retreated to woods where It possessed him, leading him to slaughter several anti-union organizers, possibly involved in the murder of his comrades, in broad daylight at the Silver Dollar Bar. He is later lynched by the townspeople despite seeming to lack all memory of the murders.

• Richard "Dick" Hallorann: A chef in Derry Army E Company. Although Dick Hallorann plays a minor role in this novel, by saving Mike Hanlon's father and many others at the fire at the Black Spot, he plays a more significant role in the novel The Shining.

• Alvin Marsh: Beverly Marsh's insane father. Although he is not an alcoholic or drug user, he abuses Bev and her mother (who later died) and acts misogynistic. Though there are times when Alvin is shown is be a loving and caring father to Bev. He died of unknown causes in 1980, (possibly killed by It).

25th Anniversary Special Edition

Cover for the 25th anniversary edition

On December 13, 2011, Cemetery Dance published a special limited edition of It for the 25th anniversary of the novel (ISBN 978-1587672705) in three editions: an unsigned limited gift edition of 2,750, a signed limited edition of 750, and a signed and lettered limited edition of 52. All three editions are oversized hardcovers, housed in a slipcase or traycase, and feature premium binding materials. This anniversary edition features a new dust jacket illustration by Glen Orbik, as well as numerous interior illustrations by Alan M. Clark and Erin Wells. The book also contains a new afterword by Stephen King discussing his reasons for writing the novel.

Adaptations

Main article: It (1990 film)

In 1990, the novel was adapted into a television movie featuring John Ritter as Ben Hanscom, Harry Anderson as Richie Tozier, Richard Masur as Stan Uris, Tim Reid as Mike Hanlon, Annette O'Toole as Beverly Marsh, Richard Thomas as Bill Denbrough, Olivia Hussey as Audra Phillips, Dennis Christopher as Eddie Kaspbrak, Michael Cole as Henry Bowers, and Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown/It.

In 1998, United Studios Ltd. adapted the story and created the television show Woh which aired on Zee tv in India.

On March 12, 2009, Warner Bros. announced that a new adaptation of Stephen King's novel had started. Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Doug Davison are set to produce. In 2010, the screenplay was being re-written by Dave Kajganich.

On September 21, 2010, film director Guillermo del Toro announced that he would like to direct new adaptations of the Stephen King novels It and Pet Sematary, but stated that he is very busy and unlikely to be able to make them any time soon.

On June 7, 2012, The Hollywood Reporter announced that the novel would be adapted into a two-part film, directed by Cary Fukunaga.

External links

• It at Worlds Without End
• IT Review at Illuminati Blog
• IT Review (and Summary) at Stephen King Book Reviews
• It: Review and Chapter-By-Chapter Analysis