It is this London that James Herbert was raised in, and it is the one he viscerally evokes in the pages of his first novel. In addition to the unnerving horror and gore-neatly scaffolded by clean prose and the occasional purple flourish-we are given a glimpse of a vanished London, a city of vast slums, uncleared bombsites, abandoned docklands, feral children, casual racism, and lusty English perversion-a half-tamed London, not yet leveraged and financialized and vertical, but sprawling, old, and mean.

Gory, puerile, and utterly appealing, the Rats trilogy has much to offer the modern eye. But during his first decade as a professional writer, Herbert excelled at what the British called “nasties,” publishing a novel per year, including two sequels to The Rats that completed a trilogy. He would develop as an author and an activist, tempering the trademark gore with more refined language and higher literary aims.

Herbert would go on to become an author of global significance, his 23 novels eventually selling over 54 million copies worldwide in 34 different languages. 1974’s The Rats was a genuine cultural phenomenon upon release, a blockbuster that sold out its initial print run of 100,000 within three weeks and, in the words of The Observer, “irrevocably mutated British horror,” tearing it “from the grip of the bourgeoisie” by “writing about working-class characters” and squaring off against the ugliness and frank brutality of contemporary life. When 30-year-old ad-man James Herbert set out to write a novel, he had a simple goal in mind: “to show you what it was really like to have your leg chewed by a mutant creature.” He succeeded admirably.

James herbert's the rats