The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer
Hardcover edition
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| Author | Ridley Pearson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror |
| Publisher | Hyperion |
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Publication date
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2001 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages |
Hardcover: 252 Paperback: 278 |
| ISBN | (Hardcover) (Paperback) |
| OCLC | 48659852 |
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red is a 2001 novel by Ridley Pearson focusing on the life of the fictional John and Ellen Rimbauer and the construction of their mansion, Rose Red, in the early 20th century. Built on an old Indian burial ground, Rose Red is considered haunted and mysterious tragedies occur throughout the mansion's history. The novel is written in the form of a diary by Ellen Rimbauer, and annotated by the fictional professor of paranormal activity, Joyce Reardon. The novel also presents a fictional afterword by Ellen Rimbauer's grandson, Steven.
The novel's genesis came as part of a $200,000 promotional marketing campaign for Stephen King's Rose Red television miniseries. Marketing of the film presented the movie as based on actual events.
In 2000, two years before the Rose Red miniseries aired, the producers contracted with author Ridley Pearson to write a tie-in novel, to be titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, under the pseudonym "Dr. Joyce Reardon" (one of the main characters of the miniseries). The novel presented itself as nonfiction, and claimed to be the actual diary of Ellen Rimbauer (wife of the builder of Rose Red). The work was originally intended to be an architectural book featuring photos and drawings of the fictional Rose Red house with the supernatural elements subtly woven into the text and photos, but Pearson (building on several references to a diary in King's script for the miniseries) wrote it as Ellen Rimbauer's diary instead. Inspired by the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project, King came up with the idea of presenting the novel as a real one by having "Dr. Joyce Reardon" edit the "diary." King also inserted a reference into the book's foreword that a "best-selling author had found the journal in Maine", so that fans would be misled into concluding that King had written the work. The ruse worked. Fans and the press speculated for some time that Stephen King or his wife Tabitha King had written the book until Pearson was revealed to be the novel's author.
To help promote the miniseries and further blur the line between reality and fiction, the book contained a link to a fictional "Beaumont University" Web site where "Dr. Joyce Reardon" was alleged to have taught. The site contains in-universe promotional material as well as an easter egg page with diary entries that were "censored" from the main book.
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