A post by an anonymous woman on reddit has gone viral, after she revealed the surprise she received when her mother gifted her a copy of the Stephen King novel “The Shining.” While receiving the classic horror story is great enough for a King fan, what Reddit user BetteDavisMidler found inside was simply wonderful. It turns out her mother had written to the author about the book and had received a response, something most Constant Readers can only dream of happening to them. The signed letter was hidden inside the novel, just waiting for its reader to discover it.

When the Redditor’s mother, Jane Ann Robertson, was originally reading the King novel 36 years ago, she enjoyed it, but had a question about a leading character in the story and his imaginary friend.

Reader of ‘The Shining’ writes to Stephen King and gets a response

The mother wrote to King asking him to clarify the question, which related to Danny Torrance’s imaginary friend, Tony, asking the author why he chose that particular name. She had also asked if the imaginary friend was a manifestation of the boy’s adult self.

While these days you are rarely lucky enough to get a response when writing to a best-selling author, who must received thousands of letters, it turns out in those days he had a little more time and had thoughtfully responded to her query.

King explained that the character Danny’s full name is actually Daniel Anthony Torrance, and that in the story, Danny had chosen “Tony,” after his middle name, as a moniker for his imaginary pal.

The author also noted that he had received several letters about that point in the story, and that he probably hadn’t made it clear enough when writing "The Shining." King went on to tell the Redditor’s mother to enjoy his upcoming novel “Different Seasons,” before signing off with his classic signature.

As reported by the Daily Star, the Redditor explained that her mother had forgotten all about the letter from King until she recently cleaned her bookshelf and she wrapped the book, complete with the note, and gave it to her daughter for Christmas.

When the woman posted an image of the signed letter on Reddit, she commented that Christmas 2017 was pretty cool at that stage.

Redditors commented on how ‘awesome’ receiving that letter was

Among the many comments to the post, one user remarked on how awesome it was that King took the time to reply to the woman’s mother, despite the fact that even at that time, the amount of mail he received must have been a lot. Another Reddit user commented on the fact that the note had obviously been typed by the author himself.

However, while most Constant Readers have never received a response, it turns out others had – and at around the same time.

One Redditor commented that they received a similar letter, also dated 1982, but that their ex had destroyed the note in a fit of rage. Another said they had received something similar in response to a query about “Danse Macabre,” and noted that before King’s mailbox got overwhelming, he was pretty nice about responding to everyone who wrote to him. The rest of us can just keep on hoping!
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