The first of Stephen King’s Bachman books to be published was Rage. Released in 1977 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, it was King’s earliest published novel under that name and the first title later associated with the Bachman books.
Rage was originally written as Getting It On, but the title was changed before publication. It follows a troubled high-school student who takes his classroom hostage, making the novel a psychologically intense and controversial examination of alienation, anger, and violence. After several real-world school shootings were associated with the book, King allowed it to go out of print in the United States.
A common mix-up is The Long Walk, which was the first novel King wrote, beginning in 1966 or 1967, but it was not published until 1979. Roadwork followed in 1981, The Running Man in 1982, and Thinner in 1984. The four earlier novels—excluding Thinner—were collected in the 1985 omnibus The Bachman Books.