Peter Straub is the author of nineteen novels: Marriages (Andre Deutsch, 1973), Under Venus (Stealth Press, 1985), Julia (Jonathan Cape, 1975), If You Could See Me Now (Jonathan Cape, 1977), Ghost Story (Jonathan Cape, 1979); the World Fantasy Award-nominated Shadowland (Coward McCann & Geohegan, 1980), the British Fantasy Award-winning Floating Dragon (Putnam, 1983), The Talisman (with Stephen King) (Viking/Putnam, 1984), the World Fantasy Award-winning Koko (Dutton, 1988), Mystery (Dutton, 1990), The Throat (Dutton, 1993) — these last three comprising the "Blue Rose Trilogy" — The Hellfire Club (Random House, 1996), the Stoker Award-winning Mr. X (Random House, 1999), Black House (with Stephen King) (Random House, 2001), lost boy lost girl (Random House, 2003), winner of both the Stoker and the International Horror Guild Awards, the Stoker Award-winning In the Night Room (Random House, 2004), and Skylark (Subterranean Press, 2009), an early variant of A Dark Matter (Doubleday, forthcoming 2010). He has published three collections of shorter fiction, Houses Without Doors (Dutton, 1990); the Stoker Award-winning Magic Terror (Random House, 2000), including the World Fantasy Award-winning "The Ghost Village" and "Mr. Clubb & Mr. Cuff, " winner of both the International Horror Guild and Stoker Awards; and the Stoker Award-winning 5 Stories (Borderlands Books, 2007). His own honors include Grand Master at the World Horror Convention in 1998, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2006, the International Horror Guild Living Legend Award in 2007, and the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award in 2008. He has published one book of non-fiction, Sides (Cemetery Dance Publications, 2007), and three books of poetry, Ishmael (Turret Books, 1972), Open Air (Irish University Press, 1972), and Leeson Park and Belsize Square (Underwood Miller, 1983). He has edited Peter Straub's Ghosts (Borderlands Books, 1992), Conjunctions 3: New Wave Fabulists (Bard College, 2002), H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America, 2005), and forthcoming in October 2009, The American Fantastic Tale (Library of America, two vols.). His reviews have been published in TLS, The New Statesman, and The Washington Post.

Straub is married to Susan Straub, founder of the Read to Me program. They have two now-grown children, Benjamin and Emma, and they live in a brownstone on the Upper West Side of New York City.