James Herbert Books In Order

Publication Order of Rats Books

Publication Order of Rats Graphic Novels

Publication Order of David Ash Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

James Herbert was one of the award winning and bestselling authors from England, who was particularly famous for writing down horror novels. Originally, he used to work as an art director at an advertising agency. Working as a full time author, Herbert used to design the covers of his books as well as do their publicity on his own. A total of 54 million printed copies of his books has been sold worldwide. Many of them have also been translated in as many as 34 foreign languages, including Russian and Chinese. Author Herbert holds an OBE, which was awarded to him by the British government. He was born as James John Herbert in London on April 8, 1943, and died on March 20, 2013. His father, Herbert Herbert, used to work as a stall holder in the Brick Lane Market in London. Author Herbert received his school education from a Catholic school known as ‘Our Lady of the Assumption’, located in Bethnal Green. At the age of 11, he won a scholarship to study at the St. Aloysius Grammer School located in Highgate. Later, Herbert joined the Hornsey Art College and completed his graduation. After that, he joined the arts department of a small advertising agency called as John Collings and started his professional career.

Author Herbert left that agency after some time and began working for the Charles Barker Advertisers. It was at this advertising agency that Herbert went on to become an art director and then a group head. Author Herbert used to live in Woodmancote, a small town located near Henfield, in West Sussex. His siblings included a couple of brothers named Peter and John. Peter used to work as a market trader, while John was an insurance broker. Author Herbert used to write his drafts on jumbo pads using longhand. In the year 1979, he was asked to pay the damages as it was ruled against him that he had copied the base plot of his novel The Spear’ from the work of another author named Trevor Ravenscroft. In 2010, he was honored with the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, which was presented to him by the popular author, Stephen King. After a little while in the same year, he was also awarded with the OBE and it was presented to him by Prince Charles at the Birthday Honors in 2010. Author Herbert died at the age of 69 at his Sussex home. He is now survived by his beloved wife named Eileen and as well as three daughters.

The first couple of books written by author Herbert were disaster novels. The first one, titled The Rats, deals with giant black rats who eat men, and the second one, called as the Fog, describes a chemical weapon that gets accidentally released. In the first three weeks after the released of the first book, more than 100,000 copies were sold out. This success motivated author Herbert to write three more sequels, all of which were equally successful. In his third horror book, author Herbert made use of supernatural horror instead of the science fiction horror. This was followed by many other successful novels over the course of his writing career. Between the years 1974 and 1988, he had released a new book almost every year. In one of his books, author Herbert has described that he finds himself very much insecure about the fact that he is an author. Stephen King ha said about him that he didn’t appear to be literary by any means, but his books depicted a sense of raw urgency.

One of the successful novel series written by author James Herbert is titled as ‘The Rats’. It is comprised of 3 books in total, which were released between the years 1974 and 1983. The first novel in this series was published as ‘The Rats’. It was released in the year 1974 by the Macmillan publication. The plot of the book includes graphic depictions of mutilation and death. A film called as ‘Deadly Eyes’ was made based on the book in the year 1982. Also, an adventure game was developed based on the book in the year 1985. The opening plot of the book introduces the readers to a highly alcoholic vagrant resting in a forgotten and abandoned house near a canal. He seemed to be ruminating over all the injustices that life had inflicted upon him when he gets attacked by a several dog sized rats. A young art teacher from east London named Harris enquires one of his students about the bandage on his hand, to which he replies that it was caused by a rat attack.

In the meantime, a small girl and her dog get killed by a group of giant rats, which were helped by the smaller ones. When Harris is on the way of taking his student to the hospital, he comes across the dead body of the girl alongside her grieving mother. At the hospital, he is informed by the doctors that the number of rat attacks has increased greatly in the past few days. In the sequences of the plot, Harris goes on to investigate the origin of the giant rats. With the help of of a disgraced health minister named Foskins, he becomes successful in finding the trace of the leader of the giant rats, which is huge, hairless, obese, and white rat with two heads. Harris kills it along with all the other giant rats and hopes that he has saved the city from the wrath of the black rats. But at the ending sequence, it is depicted that one rat survives and later gives birth to a new white rat. Author Herbert had said in his interviews that he got the inspiration to write this book after seeing Tod Browning’s ‘Dracula’. Later, the manuscript of the book was typed by his wife, who sent it to 9 different publishers after a period nine months and one of them agreed to publish it.

The next book in The Rats series written by author James Herbert was published under the title ‘Lair’. It was released by the Pan Macmillan publication in the year 1979. At the beginning of this book, it is shown that the mutant white survived and grew up. It mated with another rat and created offsprings as a replica of its own. The giant white rats then started dominating the smaller black ones and forced them to bring food for them. After a short while, the black rats became restless and the giant white ones began attacking the humans. As a result, the city once again came to face the wrath of the giant rats, this time from the white ones.