R. L. Stine Biography

Robert Lawrence “R. L.” Stine is the man who gave goose bumps to children and kept scared teenagers from sleeping through dark, stormy nights with his horror tales of bloody knives and whistling ghosts. Popularly called the ‘Stephen King of children’s literature’, Stine has authored hundreds of books for children and teenagers in the horror genre. The prolific writer is counted among the top bestsellers of modern literature and his books have sold over 400 million copies worldwide. An avid reader of books of various types from childhood, he began writing at the tender age of nine. Even as a child he found the outdoors boring and preferred typing away stories and jokes on his typewriter. He became a writer upon growing up, but his initial works were very different from the horror stories he would eventually become famous for. He began his writing career by writing joke books for kids and created a humour magazine called ‘Bananas’. As a humour writer he used the name Jovial Bob Stine. He began writing full time after losing his day job and made his foray into the horror genre with the novel ‘Blind Date’ which was well-received. Having discovered his niche, he plunged head-on into writing horror fiction and eventually launched the highly successful ‘Goosebumps’ series.