Masterfully told and as suspenseful as it is haunting, The Green Mile is Stephen King’s classic #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks. Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk “the Green Mile,” the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain’s electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities over the years working the Mile, but he’s never seen anything like John Coffey—a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about John Coffey—a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs… “ The Green Mile manages to sustain notes of visceral wonder and indelible horror.” — The New York Times “King surpasses our expectations, leaves us spellbound and hungry for the next twist of plot.” — The Boston Globe “His best fiction… as hauntingly touching as it is just plain haunted. — Entertainment Weekly “One of King’s most immediately engaging page-turners.” — USA Today Set in the 1930s at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary's death-row facility, The Green Mile is the riveting and tragic story of John Coffey, a giant, preternaturally gentle inmate condemned to death for the rape and murder of twin nine-year-old girls. It is a story narrated years later by Paul Edgecomb, the ward superintendent compelled to help every prisoner spend his last days peacefully and every man walk the green mile to execution with his humanity intact. Edgecomb has sent seventy-eight inmates to their date with "old sparky", but he's never encountered one like Coffey -- a man who wants to die, yet has the power to heal. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecomb discovers the terrible truth about Coffey's gift, a truth that challenges his most cherished beliefs -- and ours. Originally published in 1996 in six self-contained monthly installments, The Green Mile is an astonishingly rich and complex novel that delivers over and over again. Each individual volume became a huge success when first published, and all six were on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously. Three years later, when Frank Darabont made The Green Mile into an award-winning movie starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan, the book returned to the bestseller list -- and stayed there for months. And now -- with a new introduction by King's foreign agent Ralph Vicinanza, as well as the author's own foreword -- we have the first hardcover edition of this magnificent novel in which "King surpasses our expectations, leaves us spellbound and hungry for the next twist of plot" (The Boston Globe). With illustrations and a new frontispiece for this edition by Mark Geyer. Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes If It Bleeds , The Institute , Elevation , The Outsider , Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch , Finders Keepers , and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and an AT&T Audience Network original television series). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower , It , Pet Sematary , and Doctor Sleep are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. The Green Mile The Complete Serial Novel By Stephen King Scribner Copyright ©2000 Stephen King All right reserved. ISBN: 0743210891 Introduction By Ralph Vicinanza Wednesday night...early September...the end of a long, late summer day. My assistants had just left the office when the fax machine went off. I figured it must be the NYT bestseller list, since publishers get the list ten days before it runs in the paper and Signet would be sending over a copy. Each week since the first monthly installment of The Green Mile was published in March '96 had been thrilling. But this could be it...a singular achievement. And there it was: six titles on the paperback bestseller list, including the last title, Coffey on the Mile, at #1 for that week of September 15. While any new Stephen King work of fiction does well, I hadn't really expected The Green Mile to be the success it turned out to be. There were serious risks involved. But there it was...a huge a