Stephen King has made one thing clear in his work. Apparently, a seemingly incalculable amount of wildly dangerous, often supernatural threats are looming throughout his beloved home state of Maine. Still, there are a few notable epicenters that loom especially large and Derry, the setting for the new HBO Max series IT: Welcome to Derry, is chief among them. In fact, Derry has quite the iconic history in Stephen King’s work.
King’s books are far more interconnected than those only really familiar with him through the countless movie and TV adaptations of his work might realize. Decades into his career, it’s incredibly impressive to realize King’s single-handedly created an expansive shared universe that, thanks to how insanely prolific he is, feels like it’s on par with Marvel and DC, given how much lore there is at this point. Along with recurring characters, much of that lore includes the fictional settings that stories revisit, like Castle Rock, Jerusalem’s Lot, and Derry. Among this Big Three, Derry was the last we’d see, and yet it was percolating in King’s mind for years.
When Was the First Mention of Derry in Stephen King’s Written Work?
Derry was first mentioned in King’s 1981 short story, “The Bird and the Album.” From there, it became part of the background for King’s fictionalized version of Maine, with other name drops popping up with increasing frequency. Perhaps the most amusing reference came just a year later in 1982, when Derry is evoked in The Running Man, set in the then far future of 2025. The Running Man was written under King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym, while he was trying to keep it a secret that he was the true author behind Bachman’s books. So including the same fictional town is, in retrospect, a bit of a “I dare you to figure it out!” moment. (By 1985, it was, in fact, figured out.)
Derry mentions also popped up in popular King works like “The Body” (the short story that Stand By Me is based on) and Pet Sematary in the early ’80s. But in 1986 he’d finally set a novel there and in doing so, made it worth the wait by delivering a gripping horror epic that showed just how immersed in evil this particular place was.
Derry Takes Center Stage in IT Novel with Pennywise the Clown
Running over 1100 pages, IT didn’t just use Derry as a setting. It really dialed in on the idea that the ancient title character corrupted things in this place going back long before anyone could remember. A big part of the book involved the “Loser’s Club” kids at the center of the story investigating Derry’s history and learning more about all of the disappearances, murders, and horrific and tragic events that had plagued the town, which seemed to especially bubble up every 27 years. The Loser’s Club came to realize there was, in fact, a source for all of it in the form of the evil being they come to call IT, whether IT was in the guise of its frequent Pennywise the Clown persona or appearing as something else entirely.
King is never shy about exploring the history of the places he sets his stories, and yet IT still felt like the most King had ever built out a town in such a detailed manner within the confines of a single book. As the story goes forward, we get insight into so many important locations and/or dark historical events through the decades. This includes everything from the Kitchener Ironworks explosion to the fire at the Black Spot, not to mention the Well House on Neibolt Street, the Paul Bunyon statue, and so much more.
Among King’s work, it stands out because there is a singular inciting cause for why things kept going awry in such awful ways through so many eras. Sure, there’s plenty of dark and spooky history in a place like Jerusalem’s Lot too, but IT posited that pretty much every notable aspect of Derry’s legacy was infected by the specific presence of IT.
Spoiler alert for the ending of IT, but that book (and its subsequent miniseries and motion picture adaptations) concludes with the now-adult Loser’s Club truly vanquishing IT. This frees Derry from IT’s clutches in the process. And perhaps that’s why King has not made Derry as much of a large-scale recurring presence as somewhere like Castle Rock. Because everything should be much better there now… Right?
Of course, this is a horror story, and there is the ever-looming question of whether IT is alive or not. And King has had some fun with this in a couple of his books set after IT that have ventured, albeit briefly, into Derry.
Crossovers Into Derry From Other Characters in the Stephen King Universe
In the 1987 novel The Tommyknockers, two characters drive through the town. At one point, one of them begins to hallucinate. He thinks he’s seeing “a clown grinning up at him from an open sewer manhole.” Which begs the question, beyond it being a fun Easter egg, why would Pennywise appear to someone at all after IT is completely gone from Derry? Hmm…
Then, in 2001’s Dreamcatcher (mainly set just outside of Derry), when that story’s villain, Mr. Gray goes into Derry himself, he sees a plaque dedicated by the Loser’s Club, commemorating those lost in the massive storm of 1985. This is a major event that happens at the conclusion of IT as something that accompanied the final battle against the creature. Yet on the plaque, someone has now ominously scrawled “Pennywise Lives.” Which certainly seems to indicate that a certain clown is still top of mind for some in town.
Derry has continued to occasionally pop up in King stories. The protagonist of Bag of Bones living there, though he spends most of the book in a different location. And then there’s 11/22/63 including a fascinating section where that book’s time traveling main character, Jake Epping, goes back to Derry in the year 1958. In the wake of IT’s temporary defeat by the child incarnation of the Loser’s Club, Jake not only meets two of that aforementioned club, Beverly and Richie, but feels the feeling of evil permeating this town.
However, when it comes to telling a story 100% exploring what post-IT Derry is like, 1994’s Insomnia remains unique. It takes place in Derry and focuses on Ralph Roberts, a man whose escalating insomnia leads to him seeing auras around people. Insomnia has plenty of mentions of the big storm of 1985 and its aftermath. And it includes an appearance from another Loser’s Club alum, Mike Hanlon, who was the only one to stay in Derry.
IT/Pennywise makes no return here, but it’s worth noting that the book’s villain, the Crimson King, is part of King’s sweeping Dark Tower series, which eventually connected back to pretty much all of his previous stories in some manner, IT included. In Insomnia, the Crimson King tells Ralph at one point, “shape-shifting is a time-honored custom in Derry,” clearly referencing IT/Pennywise. Because supernatural evil game recognizes supernatural evil game.
Derry Takes on TV in 2025 in IT: Welcome to Derry
A prequel to the 2017 and 2019 IT feature films, the new series IT: Welcome to Derry exists in those movies’ altered timeline, where the Loser’s Club first encountered IT when they were kids in 1989, not 1958, and then again as adults in 2016, not 1985. Set in 1962, the series centers on the previous IT cycle before 1989. It pulls heavily from the Derry backstory King included in his book, albeit also with different years for when certain things occurred.
That means the Black Spot fire is something executive producers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti have indicated is looming around the corner in the show. Other IT-fueled events from the book’s lore, like the Bradley Gang massacre and the Ironworks explosion, will happen in subsequent seasons. Each one will travel back another 27 years earlier.
Unlike some prequels that feel like they’re grasping at straws for a compelling story, Welcome to Derry feels like worthwhile subject matter because King has already laid the groundwork history by providing pieces of information about many pivotal events have occurred in this town, some of which took place hundreds and even thousands of years back further. The show has the chance to build upon these events and further explore what exactly occurred before and after, how IT thrived in the process, and those impacted along the way.
One thing is for sure though. If you’re in Derry and you see a clown, run like hell.
IT: Welcome to Derry premieres October 26, 2025 on HBO Max.
The post Welcome to Derry: How This Town Became an Iconic Part of Stephen King’s Work appeared first on Nerdist.
Source: Kiat Media
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