R.L. Stine

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Stine's first horror novel was Blind Date, published in 1986, followed by many others including The Babysitter, Beach House, Hit and Run, and The Girlfriend. In 1989, he started writing the Fear Street books, a teen horror fiction series that has sold over 80 million copies. Before launching Goosebumps in 1992 with Parachute Press, Stine authored three humorous science fiction books in the Space Cadets series: Jerks in Training, Bozos on Patrol, and Losers in Space. A Goosebumps TV series ran for four seasons from 1995 to 1998, and three video games were produced: Escape from HorrorLand, Attack of the Mutant, and Goosebumps HorrorLand. Jack Black portrayed a fictionalized version of Stine named R.L. Stine in the 2015 film Goosebumps, while Stine himself made a cameo appearance as a man walking his dog. In the sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018), Stine had another cameo as the School Principal.

In Their Own Story

The attic was dusty, smelling of old paper and forgotten dreams. I pulled a worn paperback from the shelf, the title 'Welcome to Dead House' peeling slightly at the edges. As my fingers traced the author's name—R.L. Stine—the temperature in the room dropped sharply. The shadows in the corner seemed to stretch longer than they should, twisting into shapes that watched me with silent, hungry eyes. A whisper drifted through the silence, not from outside, but from within the pages themselves: 'Now, it begins.' I realized too late that reading the story wasn't just an act of imagination; it was an invitation.

Reader's Guide

The Goosebumps series began in 1992 when Stine and Parachute Press launched the franchise. The series has sold over 400 million copies globally in 35 languages, becoming the second-best-selling book series in history. The series spawned a media franchise including two television series, a video game series, a comic series, and two feature films. Stine has been referred to as the 'Stephen King of children's literature.' He also wrote the teen horror fiction series Fear Street, which has sold over 80 million copies and has been adapted into a series of films. In three consecutive years during the 1990s, USA Today named Stine as America's number one best-selling author. In 2003, the Guinness Book of World Records named Stine as the best-selling children's book series author of all time. Stine famously types all of his books using only his left index finger, causing the finger to become curved over the years; he jokingly called it 'hideous and totally bent' in 2008.

Did You Know?

• Stine began writing at age nine after finding a typewriter in his attic.
• He wrote dozens of humor books for children under the name Jovial Bob Stine.
• Stine types all of his books using only his left index finger, which he jokingly called 'hideous and totally bent' in 2008.
• He was listed on People Weekly's 'Most Intriguing People' annual list in 1995.
• Stine won the Horror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.