The Exorcist - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Exorcist is a novel of supernatural

Supernatural fiction

Supernatural fiction is a literary genre exploiting or requiring as plot devices or themes some contradictions of the commonplace natural world and materialist assumptions about it....

suspense

Suspense

Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic...

by William Peter Blatty

William Peter Blatty

William Peter Blatty is an American writer and filmmaker. The novel The Exorcist, written in 1971, is his magnum opus; he also penned the subsequent screenplay version of the film, for which he won an Academy Award....

, published by Harper & Row

Harper (publisher)

Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...

in 1971. It was inspired by a 1949 case of demonic possession

Demonic possession

Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...

and exorcism

Exorcism

Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...

that Blatty heard about while he was a student in the class of 1950 at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

, a Jesuit school. On October 31, 2010, Cemetery Dance

Cemetery Dance Publications

Cemetery Dance Publications is a specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992.Cemetery...

published a special omnibus edition of The Exorcist and its sequel Legion
Legion (novel)
Legion is a 1983 horror novel by William Peter Blatty, a sequel to The Exorcist. It was made into the movie The Exorcist III in 1990.Like The Exorcist, it involves demonic possession...

, signed by Blatty (ISBN 978-1587672118). A limited edition of 750 copies (with an additional 52 leatherbound copies), it is now out of print

Out of print

Out of print refers to an item, typically a book , but can include any print or visual media or sound recording, that is in the state of no longer being published....