Flavorwire

Although we were big Goosebumps fans in our elementary school years, we have to admit that we haven’t been up on R.L. Stine’s authorial activities since the early ’90s. So we were surprised, last week, when he tweeted, “I’m happy to say I’ve finished my horror novel for adults. It will be published next July.” His announcement got us thinking about how many famous children’s authors — both classic and current — have also written books for adults, with varying degrees of publicity and success. After the jump, we take a look at the more mature work of some of our favorite authors from childhood.

R.L. Stine

In fact, the book Stine tweeted about isn’t his first novel for adults. The staggeringly prolific author of Goosebumps, Fear Street, and about 20 other series we’re too old to know anything about published Superstitious, his first horror story for grown-ups, in 1995. It follows a grad student whose marriage to a very — yes — superstitious professor is followed by a string of murders. From there, the plot seems to devolve into a mashup of Rosemary’s Baby and Jane Eyre. A poor seller compared to his kids’ books, Superstitious also wasn’t terribly popular with critics.