While teaching a high school Fantasy and Science Fiction course at Hampden Academy, King was inspired by "Dracula", one of the books covered in the class. "One night over supper I wondered aloud what would happen if Dracula came back in the twentieth century, to America. 'He'd probably be run over by a Yellow Cab on Park Avenue and killed,' my wife said. (In the Introduction to the 2004 audiobook recording that Stephen King read himself, he says it was he who said, "Probably he'd land in New York and be killed by a Taxi Cab, like Margaret Mitchell in Atlanta" and that it was his wife who suggested a rural setting for the book.) That closed the discussion, but in the following days, my mind kept returning to the idea. It occurred to me that my wife was probably right – if the legendary Count came to New York, that is. But if he were to show up in a sleepy little country town, what then? I decided I wanted to find out, so I wrote "'Salem's Lot", which was originally titled "Second Coming"." Though King initially planned to title the novel "Second Coming", he changed it to "Jerusalem's Lot" on the advice of his wife, novelist Tabitha King, who thought the original title sounded too much like a "bad sex story." King's publishers then shortened it to the current title, thinking the author's choice sounded too religious. King's paperback publisher bought the book for $550,000.