Why The Number 19 Shows Up Again & Again In Stephen King's Books

Feb 13, 2025 - 06:30

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Stephen King

There's a fascinating motif that appears again and again throughout the books and stories of Stephen King, and that's the number 19. Longtime readers know that in-universe lore runs vast and deep throughout Stephen King's interconnected universe, and his built mythology has constantly been added to and revised over the years. Some of that has been to fix continuity errors, some of it has been down to an author tweaking older work he wasn't happy with, and some of it has simply been the inevitable byproduct of an output that spans so many books and short stories.

Despite the changes, however, there are certain themes that have remained constant, like his readers. The everyman protagonist is synonymous with the Stephen King novel at this point. Recurring themes of addiction, childhood fear and wonder, redemption from traumatic pasts, and others have left their indelible stamps in Stephen King's books. But smaller patterns are also tattooed across his pages, including a numerical one that has become the most fascinating Easter egg: the number 19.

The Number 19 Has Deep Meaning For Stephen King's Personal Life

It Was Both A Start & An End For Him

There are a few real-life reasons that King has threaded 19 through so much of his work, both confirmed and perhaps embellished. King has said he was 19 years old when he began working on his first novel. While some think that means Carrie, it was actually the earliest version of The Gunslinger. It's well-known that Robert Browning's epic poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" inspired King to write the first book in the Dark Tower series after he read it in college. However, King claiming he began writing it when he was 19 may very well be an embellishment on his part to better fit into the mythos of the 19 motif.

While Browning's poem is the strongest influence, King was also influenced by Arthurian legend, J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns, William Butler Yeats' poems "The Tower" and "The Black Tower," T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," and countless other works of art in the writing of The Dark Tower series.

What's definite, though, is that the number 19 has ties to the most traumatic moment in King's life: his infamous accident, which happened on June 19, 1999, and left him nearly dead, bad enough that he had to be flown by air ambulance to a trauma center in Lewiston, Maine. Books 1-4 of the Dark Tower series were written before his accident, but books 5-7 were written after. King has explained at length on multiple occasions that, after the date of the accident that changed his life forever, both the writing of the second half of the series and the number 19 were inextricable from his accident and its aftermath.

The Number 19 Pops Up Throughout The Dark Tower Series

The Number 19 Is Tied To Fate In That Universe

Unsurprisingly, then, the 19 motif is most directly linked to The Dark Tower. While, again, the pattern didn't start until The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, after the accident, he retroactively wove it into the revised and expanded edition of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, when it was re-released in 2003. The mystical number holds deep meaning in the world of The Dark Tower, popping up everywhere for Roland and his ka-tet, from branches and twigs that seem to make the shape of the number to characters whose names are exactly 19 letters long.

Dark Tower readers know that ka is the force that binds all things together and guides all things and all events. In other words, it's fate.

It's explained why 19 keeps appearing in the Dark Tower books, although not in detail. All that's known is that the Keystone World - that is, "our" world - has a "ka" of 19. Dark Tower readers know that ka is the force that binds all things together and guides all things and all events. In other words, it's fate; the word "ka-tet," for example, is the word for a group of people who are bound together by destiny, whether permanently or for a short time.

Split images of Idris Elba as the Gunslinger in The Dark Tower

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It's explained to Roland and his ka-tet that they are seeing the number 19 because ka is guiding them and that when they see it, they need to pay close attention, as it's not just coincidence. As the common Dark Tower refrain goes, "Ka is a wheel; its only purpose is to turn." It's an almost Buddhist-like idea that ka will return you to the place you need to be, whether it be the next step on your journey in life or forcing you to face a problem you'd tried to run away from, until you evolve. In the case of Roland and his friends, ka keeps returning them to the number 19, nudging them in the right direction.

Nineteen Also Shows Up As A Motif In Other Books & Character Names

Whether It's Coincidence Or Intentional Is Always A Fun Guessing Game

Stephen King sitting in front of his novels

While the number 19 is most closely associated with The Dark Tower, though, it's not solely limited to that series. It also pops up in other Stephen King works, from the alt-history sci-fi book 11/22/63 to the crime thriller Mr. Mercedes to his classic horror novel The Shining. Ninteen is dotted through everything in ciphers, code, and random references. There are a dozen examples of characters whose names add up to exactly 19 letters. His books also contain countless other examples where random numbers, from license plates to alarm codes to prisoner numbers, also add up to 19. Even certain story titles add up to 19 letters, such as "Low Men in Yellow Coats" and Everything's Eventual.

The Man in Black, Randall Flagg, and Marten Broadcloak in Stephen King's Dark Tower

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While some 19 appearances are certainly a coincidence and ultimately mean nothing to the larger story, other instances are definitely intentional, even going so far as to actually have a minor impact on events. Either way, it's become one of the most fun Easter eggs to spot in any Stephen King book.