Title The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories Author Robert W. Chambers Cover Art --- Publisher Dover Publications - 2004 First Printing 1895 - 1904 Category Anthology Warnings None Main Characters See below Main Elements See below

Title The King in Yellow Author Robert W. Chambers Illustrator I.N.J. Culbard Publisher SelfMadeHero - 2015 First Printing SelfMadeHero - 2015

• "The Yellow Sign"
• "The Repairer of Reputations"
• "The Demoiselle d'Ys"
• "The Mask"
• "In the Court of the Dragon"
• "The Maker of Moons"
• "A Pleasant Evening"
• "The Messenger"
• "The Key to Grief"
• "The Harbor-Master"
• "In Quest of the Dingue"
• "Is the Ux Extinct"

One of the most important works of American supernatural fiction since those of Poe, The King in Yellow was among the first attempts to establish the horror of the nameless and the unimaginable. A treasured source used by almost all the significant writers in the American pulp tradition — H. P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, Robert E. Howard, and many others — it endures as a work of remarkable power and one of the most chillingly original books in the genre.

This collection reprints all the supernatural stories from The King in Yellow , including the grisly "Yellow Sign," the disquieting "Repairer of Reputations," the tender "Demoiselle d'Ys," and others. Robert W. Chambers' finest stories from other sources have also been added, such as the thrilling "Maker of Moons" and "The Messenger." In addition, an unusual pleasure awaits those who know Chambers only by his horror three of his finest early biological science-fiction fantasies from In Search of the Unknown appear here as well.

The supernatural stories that make up Robert W. Chambers’s classic piece of weird fiction are tied together by a play that brings madness to all who read it: The King in Yellow. It’s a book that draws readers in with an irresistible yet innocent opening act, then drives them insane with the poisonous words of Act 2. It’s a book that cannot be suppressed, spreading like a disease from city to city, continent to continent. An influence on writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Neil Gaiman, The King in Yellow is one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction. In this dangerously unputdownable graphic-novel adaptation, I. N. J. Culbard brings to life a thrilling tale of horror that will make readers laugh and cry and tremble with fright . . . Read at your own risk.

I've been going through the Lovecraft re-read on the Tor.com blog and once they started running out of stuff that HPL wrote they started digging into those who influenced him, and those whom he influenced. That led me to dig up The King in Yellow stories.

"The Yellow Sign" - this seriously creeped me out, I felt it was the best of the stories, totally chilling, even more so than just about anything written by HPL. Maybe because HPL tended to use those wild adjectives the stories lose some of their creep factor, but something about the way Chambers wrote just sticks in your head, the way he described Carcosa (which is apparently a creation of another author, Bierce).

"The Repairer of Reputations" - this one confused me, but reading the re-read on Tor really helped me figure out a bit better what was going on. You have almost an SF future dystopia of the United States, where there are Lethal Chambers where citizens can go to commit suicide. And we have the author Hildred who believes he is second in line to inherit the rule of the world...but as you read carefully, and pay attention to what they other characters say, you start to realize something is a tad off, like Hildred's mental state. Talk about unreliable narrators. If you read the Tor re-read you'll discover how much so as the commenters on that blog try to unravel what is real and what is not. While I didn't like this one much the first time through, now that I've had it picked apart, I realized how complex this tale really is.

"The Demoiselle d'Ys" - careful of the French moors, people go in but they don't always come back, and if they do, they find themselves back...waaaaaay back...I'd pretty much figured out the twist early on but then there have been a lot of stories of this sort since. Maybe this idea would be more novel to readers in 1895.

"The Mask" - This made me think of an HPL tale of sculpters and turning to stone, who knows, maybe this was the inspriration. Oddly upbeat ending though. One thing that I particularly enjoyed is that the artist in The Yellow Sign, clearly ties into The Repairer of Reputations (he knew Hildred) and I believe he might be the Jack Scott in "The Mask". The Fates sculpture is also mentioned by Hildred who knew the sculpter Boris died in France. All the evidence from Mask and Sign lead to enhance the madness of Hildred who is clearly imagining things the other characters don't know about. Frankly you need to read all three of these stories before reading the re-read on Tor!

"In the Court of the Dragon" - Creepy, another tale where the narrator is likely simply mad, but is he? Chambers does this madness thing pretty well.

"The Maker of Moons" - A longer one that made me think a bit of Lovecrafts Dreamlands, as there is a clearing in the forest you can stumble into by mistake but not on purpose and there's another land that some characters are from but cannot return to.

"A Pleasant Evening" - A creepy ghost tale, I've read others like this but this one works pretty well, though I figured out what was happening around the moment the damp letters that wouldn't dry were handed over.

"The Messenger" - A kind of family curse tale.

"The Key to Grief" - Not quite sure what to make of this. Dude kills another guy, escapes the other guys that want to hang him for murder, he finds his way to an island hidden by mist, discovers a strange girl, has a kid, then she sorta fades away and he has to face one of his accuser again. Google says something like "journey or experience that leads to understanding and confronting grief"...though the main character isn't the one doing the grieving so...

"The Harbor-Master" - Oooh, this one is pretty Lovecraftian with a creature similar to those in The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I liked the grumpy old man character.

"In Quest of the Dingue" - After finding Great Auks still exist, why not Mammoths and something called a Dingue that is apparently called that being it makes a "ding-dong" sound (I just couldn't picture that, guess Chambers thought it would be funny?)

"Is the Ux Extinct" - And here we are to prove the existence of a bird that doesn't exist anywhere other than in this story, a bird so big you can amusingly ride around on the chicks the moment they hatch. These three last stories are all tied together by the same narrator and they get progressively more ridiculous as one goes along, the horror of the first devolves into absolute comedy in the last.