Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert - Lettered Edition

The basis for the 1971 film Willard and its 2003 remake, Stephen Gilbert’s bestselling novel Ratman’s Notebooks was hailed by The Washington Star as “a horrific, grisly and truly frightening masterpiece of terror.” This is the first limited edition of the novel.

Presented through a series of journal entries, Ratman’s Notebooks follows an unnamed narrator—a reclusive misfit who finds himself alienated from the world around him. Working a thankless job at a company once owned by his late father and living under the thumb of a domineering mother, he drifts through life unnoticed and unloved. When his mother demands he exterminate a rat infestation, he sets out to do just that, but cannot bring himself to follow through. Instead, he begins to bond with the rats, earning their trust, training them, and ultimately forming a secret society of intelligent companions. As his connection to the human world continues to fray, his relationship with the rats deepens and he begins to see them as agents of vengeance. What begins as a quiet rebellion escalates into a chilling plan for revenge, as the narrator sets out to reclaim power in a world that has made him feel powerless. 

Published in 1968, Ratman’s Notebooks became an immediate bestseller and was praised for its quiet horror and psychological intensity. New York Magazine called it “one of the more terrifying, deliciously scary thrillers,” while Kirkus Reviews described it as “a magnificently malignant horror story to which you will be unavoidably committed.” The Chattanooga Times hailed it as “a compelling tour de force,” and The Atlantic praised its “malevolent Gothic whimsy.” In his introduction, Kim Newman credits the novel’s success with helping legitimize horror as a mainstream literary genre, paving the way for the boom of the 1970s and the rise of authors like Stephen King and James Herbert. 

A quietly terrifying portrait of alienation, obsession and the dark places loneliness can lead, Ratman’s Notebooks remains as eerie and chilling as the day it was first published.

The limited edition of Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert is presented in three states: Lettered, Numbered and Artist editions.

LETTERED EDITION

• 6” x 9” trim size.
• 224 Pages.
• Limited to 26 copies.
• Signed by Kim Newman and Sophia Rapata.
• Introduction by Kim Newman.
• Six color illustrations by Sophia Rapata.
• Quarter split goatskin suede binding with a capped fore-edge in the Millimeter style.
• Handmade paper for the cover mirrors the novel’s unsettling tone—chaotic, raw, and unpredictable. The paper is created through a botanical contact process using foraged plants, berries, metals, and other found materials gathered from the woods of northern New York. These elements are pressed into mouldmade Arches Text Wove paper and simmered in a pot of water, sometimes with vinegar, creating abstract, often violent patterns that can never be exactly replicated. Each sheet is a one-of-a-kind imprint of decay and transformation—reflecting both the natural world and the twisted path of the novel’s protagonist. The papers are created by artist Velma Bolyard in Canton, New York.
• Designed by award winning designer Misha Beletsky, the text pages are set in Elysium and are printed by offset lithography on Neenah Cotton paper. 
  
• Endsheets are flocked velour. 
  
• Housed in a clamshell enclosure covered in cloth with velour lined trays. 
  
• Fold-out of the Artist edition dust jacket illustration by Sophia Rapata is included in this state.
• Head and tail bands are handmade with leather. 
• Housed in a cloth covered clamshell enclosure with a foil blocked spine label and velour-lined trays. 
  
• Ratman’s Velvet Ribbon Bookmark included.
• Bookmark with all pre-orders.
  

Published editions may differ slightly from mockups and prototype designs.
Illustrations © 2024 by Sophia Rapata.