The Reaper's Image
The story concerns a visit by an irascible antique collector, Johnson Spangler, to the Samuel Claggert Museum in his attempt to authenticate the legendary Delver's Mirror.The museum curator, Mr. Carlin, ushers Spangler through the building, recounting the history of this rare Elizabethan mirror, which incidents of attempted destruction have plagued it.Carlin tells a skeptical Spangler that an image of the Grim Reaper is rumored to appear in the mirror, standing close to the viewer.[1][2][3] In 1985, a revised version was collected in King's second book of short stories, Skeleton Crew.Literary critic Michael R. Collings writes that although it draws on Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, "The Reaper's Image" was "a stronger, more independent piece of atmospheric horror than King had yet produced", making use of flashbacks, self-consistent characterizations, and "allow[ing] the mystery of the Delver mirror to develop its own power rather than imposing a mystery upon the characters, as he had done in 'The Glass Floor'.