The King in Yellow

Cover of the first, 1895 edition of The King in Yellow
Author	Robert W. Chambers
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror short stories
Publisher	F.T. Neely
Publication date	1895
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	316 pp
ISBN	NA

The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories written by Robert W. Chambers and published in 1895. The stories could be categorized as early horror fiction or Victorian Gothic fiction, but the work also touches on mythology, fantasy, mystery, science fiction and romance. The first four stories in the collection involve a fictional two-act play of the same title. Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and writer. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... “Horror story” redirects here. ... This article is in need of attention. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Year 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... “ISBN” redirects here. ... This article is in need of attention. ... Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and writer. ... See also: 1894 in literature, other events of 1895, 1896 in literature, list of years in literature. ... “Horror story” redirects here. ... Strawberry Hill, an English villa in the Gothic revival style, built by seminal Gothic writer Horace Walpole Gothic fiction is an important genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. ... For other uses, see Mythology (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Fantasy (disambiguation). ... Mystery fiction is a distinct subgenre of detective fiction that entails the occurrence of an unknown event which requires the protagonist to make known (or solve). ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. ...

Stories

The first four stories are loosely connected by three main devices:

• A play in book form entitled The King in Yellow
• A mysterious and malevolent supernatural entity known as The King in Yellow
• An eerie symbol called The Yellow Sign

The color yellow signifies the decadent and aesthetic attitudes that were fashionable at the turn of the 19th century, typified by such publications as The Yellow Book^[1], a literary journal associated with Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley. It has also been suggested that the color yellow represents quarantine — an allusion to decay, disease, and specifically mental illness. For instance, the famous short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", involving a bedridden woman's descent into madness, was published shortly before Chambers' book. The Yellow Sign is a fictional symbol or glyph, first described in Robert Chambers book of horror short stories entitled The King in Yellow (1895). ... Color is an important part of the visual arts. ... A yellow Tulip. ... See also Decadent movement Decadence refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. ... The Aesthetic movement is a loosely defined movement in art and literature in later nineteenth-century Britain. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Yellow Book, with a cover illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. ... Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. ... Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898) was an influential English illustrator, and author, best known for his erotic illustrations. ... The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by author Charlotte Perkins Gilman. ...

These stories are macabre in tone, centering on characters that are often artists or decadents. The first story "The Repairer of Reputations", is set in an imagined future 1920s America, whose history, being at odds with the knowledge of the reader, adds to the effect of its unreliable narrator. The next three are set in Paris at the same time. The 1920s is a decade that is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Illustration by Gustave Doré for Baron Münchhausen: tall tales, such as those of the Baron, often feature unreliable narrators. ... This article is about the capital of France. ...

The other stories in the book do not follow the macabre theme of the first four, and most are written in the romantic fiction style common to Chambers' later work. Some are linked to the preceding stories by their Parisien setting and artistic protagonists.

List of stories

The stories present in the book are:

• The Repairer of Reputations
• The Mask
• In the Court of the Dragon
• The Yellow Sign
• The Demoiselle d'Ys
• The Prophets' Paradise
• The Street of the Four Winds
• The Street of the First Shell
• The Street of Our Lady of the Fields
• Rue Barrée

The Repairer of Reputations is a short story published by Robert W. Chambers in the collection The King in Yellow in 1895. ... In the Court of the Dragon is a short story published by Robert W. Chambers in the collection The King in Yellow in 1895. ... The Prophets Paradise is a short story published by Robert W. Chambers in the collection The King in Yellow in 1895. ...

The Play The King in Yellow

The fictional play The King in Yellow has two acts, and at least three characters: Cassilda, Camilla, and the King in Yellow. Chambers' story collection excerpts sections from the play to introduce the book as a whole, or individual stories. For example, "Cassilda's Song" comes from Act I, Scene 2 of the play:

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink beneath the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead;

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

The short story "The Mask" is introduced by an excerpt from Act I, Scene 2d: Carcosa is a fictional city in the Ambrose Bierce short story An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1891). ... The Hyades (ÆΥάδες also known as Melotte 25 or Collinder 50 or Caldwell 41) is an open star cluster located in the constellation Taurus. ...

Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.

Stranger: Indeed?

Cassilda: Indeed, it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.

Stranger: I wear no mask.

Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!

All of the excerpts come from Act I. The stories describe Act I as quite ordinary, but reading Act II drives the reader mad with the "irresistible" revealed truths. “The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterward with more awful effect.” Even seeing of the first page of the second act is enough to draw the reader in: “If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it [...]” (“The Repairer of Reputations”).

Chambers usually gives only scattered hints of the contents of the full play, as in this extract from "The Repairer of Reputations": The Repairer of Reputations is a short story published by Robert W. Chambers in the collection The King in Yellow in 1895. ...

He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali. "The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever," he muttered, but I do not believe Vance heard him. Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, he began the wonderful story of the Last King.

A similar passage occurs in "The Yellow Sign", in which two protagonists have read The King in Yellow:

Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fog-wrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.

Influences

Chambers borrowed the names Carcosa, Hali and Hastur from Ambrose Bierce, specifically his short stories “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” and “Haita the Shepherd”. There is no strong indication that Chambers was influenced beyond liking the names. For example, Hastur is a god of shepherds in “Haita the Shepherd”, but is implicitly a location in “The Repairer of Reputations”, listed alongside the Hyades and Aldebaran.^[2] Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – 1914?) was an American editorialist, journalist, short-story writer and satirist, today best known for his Devils Dictionary. ... This article is in need of attention. ... An Inhabitant of Carcosa is a short story written by 19th century critic and occasional horror author Ambrose Bierce. ...

Cthulhu Mythos

H.P. Lovecraft read The King in Yellow in early 1927^[3] and was so enchanted by it that he included references to various things and places from the book — such as the Lake of Hali and the Yellow Sign — in “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1931),^[4] one of his seminal Cthulhu Mythos stories. Lovecraft borrowed Chambers' method of only vaguely referring to supernatural events, entities, and places, thereby allowing his readers to imagine the horror for themselves. Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Carcosa is a fictional city in the Ambrose Bierce short story An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1891). ... The Yellow Sign is a fictional symbol or glyph, first described in Robert Chambers book of horror short stories entitled The King in Yellow (1895). ... The Whisperer in Darkness is a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, written in 1930. ... See also: 1930 in literature, other events of 1931, 1932 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Cthulhu and Rlyeh The Cthulhu Mythos encompasses the shared elements, characters, settings, and themes in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and associated horror fiction writers. ...

In the story, Lovecraft linked the Yellow Sign to Hastur, but in this passage it is not clear as to what Lovecraft meant Hastur to be. August Derleth developed Hastur into a Great Old One in his controversial reworking of Lovecraft's universe, elaborating on this connection in his own mythos stories. In the writings of Derleth and a few other latter-day Cthulhu Mythos authors, the King in Yellow is an avatar of Hastur, so named because of his appearance as a thin, floating man covered in tattered yellow robes. Hastur (The Unspeakable One, Him Who Is Not to be Named, Assatur, Xastur, or Kaiwan) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A Great Old One is a type of fictional being in the Cthulhu Mythos based in the stories of HP Lovecraft. ... The ten avatars of Vishnu, copyright BBT In Hindu philosophy, an avatar (also spelt as avatara) (Sanskrit: , ), most commonly refers to the incarnation (bodily manifestation) of a higher being (deva), or the Supreme Being (God) onto planet Earth. ...

In the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game published by Chaosium, the King In Yellow is an avatar of Hastur who uses his eponymous play to spread insanity among humans. He is described as a hunched figure clad in tattered, yellow rags, who wears a smooth and featureless "Pallid Mask." Removing the mask is a sanity-shattering experience; the King's face is described as "inhuman eyes in a suppurating sea of stubby maggot-like mouths; liquescent flesh, tumorous and gelid, floating and reforming." Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on the story of the same name written by H.P. Lovecraft and the so-called Cthulhu Mythos the story inspired. ... Chaosium is one of the longer lived publishers of role_playing games still in existence. ...

Although none of the characters in Chambers' book describe the plot of the play, Kevin Ross fabricated a plot for the play within the Call of Cthulhu mythos. According to Ross' version, the play is set within the fantastical alien city, Yhtill, adjacent to Aldebaran. The plot centers on the members of the city's royal family and their struggle for the throne. Their normal lives are disturbed when they hear of a mysterious stranger who is carried to the city by winged demons (assumed to be byakhee), who openly wears the Yellow Sign and an eerie "Pallid Mask." At the same time, everyone begins seeing a mirage of a city on the other side of the Lake of Hali. The city's upper towers are hidden behind one of the planet's two moons. Aldebaran from the Arabic (الدبران al-dabarān) meaning the follower, (α Tau / α Tauri / Alpha Tauri) is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus and one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. ... The Byakhee are a fictional race of interstellar beings in the Cthulhu Mythos. ... This article is about the optical phenomenon. ...

The royal family question the stranger, who calls himself the Phantom of Truth, but he only gives cryptic answers and claims to be an emissary of the terrible mythical being known as the King in Yellow, or Last King. At a masked ball honoring the royal family, the Phantom of Truth reveals that his "Pallid Mask" is not a mask, but his true face. Outraged, the queen and high priest torture him to death, but learn nothing in the process. As the Phantom of Truth dies, the King in Yellow arrives from across the Lake of Hali, driving most of the population insane as the mirage-city across the lake vanishes. The King in Yellow informs the royal family that Yhtill has now become the city of Carcosa, under the rule of the King in Yellow. The play ends with the royal family awaiting their imminent doom.

Other appearances

• Some writers have attempted to write a full text for the fictional The King in Yellow, including James Blish ("More Light" [1970]), Lin Carter ("Tatters of the King" [written 1986]), and Thom Ryng.^[5][6]
• Karl Edward Wagner used it as a motif in his novella The River of Night's Dreaming.
• Lawrence Watt-Evans adopted the name for a villainously amoral character in a series of novels: The Lure of the Basilisk, The Seven Altars of Dusarra, The Sword of Bheleu, and The Book of Silence, collectively known as The Lords of Dus.
• "The King in Yellow" is the name of a 1945 short story by Raymond Chandler. It is a crime story, in which the narrator has apparently read Chambers' book, and uses the phrase to describe one of the other characters.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, Zeb Carter mentions the King in Yellow's "world" as one to be avoided.
• In 2001, director Aaron Vanek and writer John Tynes adapted much of the book's content into a film titled The Yellow Sign.[1]
• Brian Keene's short story "The King", in: Yellow, recounts the story of a modern-day couple who attend a performance of the play. It was first published in Fear of Gravity, and was reprinted in A Walk on the Darkside and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16.
• The King in Yellow makes an appearance in the final volume of Grant Morrison's magnum opus, The Invisibles
• Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels contain references to Aldones, Camilla, Cassilda, Carcosa, Hali, and Hastur. Though Hali is a city by a lake, the characters and places do not otherwise resemble Chambers' characters.
• John Carpenter's Masters of Horror episode Cigarette Burns follows Chamber's basic plot device about obscure media (in this case, a lost film) the viewing of which causes violent insanity.
• Paul Edwin Zimmer's Dark Border series used a number of the names that feature in The King in Yellow: Hastur, Hali, Carcosa.

James Benjamin Blish (East Orange, New Jersey, May 23, 1921 – Henley-on-Thames, July 30, 1975) was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. ... See also: 1969 in literature, other events of 1970, 1971 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Linwood Vrooman Carter (June 9, 1930 - February 7, 1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. ... The year 1986 in literature involved some significant events and new books. ... Karl Edward Wagner (4 December 1945 – 13 October 1994) was an American writer, editor and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. ... In literature, a motif is a recurring element or theme that has symbolic significance in the story. ... A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction somewhat longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. ... Lawrence Watt-Evans (born 1954) is the pseudonym of American fantasy author Lawrence Watt Evans. ... This article is about the literary concept. ... See also: 1944 in literature, other events of 1945, 1946 in literature, list of years in literature. ... For other persons named Raymond Chandler, see Raymond Chandler (disambiguation). ... Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of hard science fiction. ... The Number of the Beast is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1980. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Brian Keene Brian Keene is a two-time Bram Stoker Award winning horror author, first in 2001 for his non-fiction work Jobs In Hell and then again in 2003 for his debut novel, the post-apocalyptic zombie tale The Rising. ... Grant Morrison (born January 31, 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer and artist. ... The Invisibles is an adult comic book series that was published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics from 1994 to 2000. ... Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook. ... The above illustration shows Darkover as the planet on the left with its four moons: Liriel, Kyrrdis, Irdriel and Mormallor. ... John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, film score composer and occasional actor. ... Cigarette Burns is the eighth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. ... Paul Edwin Zimmer Paul Edwin Zimmer (16 October 1943 -18 October 1997), the brother of science fiction and fantasy author Marion Zimmer Bradley, was a noted poet and an established author in his own right. ...

Footnotes

1. ^ Price, "The Mythology of Hastur", The Hastur Cycle, p. iii.
2. ^ Chambers, Robert W., The Yellow Sign and Other Stories, S. T. Joshi, editor; c. 2000, Chaosium, Inc.; p. xiv.
3. ^ Joshi & Schultz, “Chambers, Robert William”, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 38.
4. ^ Pearsall, “Yellow Sign”, The Lovecraft Lexicon, p. 436.
5. ^ Cf. The Hastur Cycle.
6. ^ Cf. The King in Yellow (Ryng).

References

• Joshi, S. T.; David E. Schultz (2001). An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31578-7. 

• Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon, 1st edition, Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Pub. ISBN 1-56184-129-3. 

• Price, Robert M. (ed.) (October 1993). The Hastur Cycle, 1st edition, Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 1-56882-009-7. 

• Ryng, Thom (April 2006). The King in Yellow, 2nd edition, Seattle, WA: Armitage House. ISBN 1-4116-8576-8. 

• Watts, Richard; Penelope Love (1990). Fatal Experiments. Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 0-933635-72-9. 

• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 74. 

Sunanda Tryambak Joshi (b. ... Everett Franklin Bleiler (born 1920) is an editor and bibliographer of science fiction and Fantasy. ...

External links

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The King in Yellow

• The King in Yellow, available at Project Gutenberg.
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• Wikia has a wiki about this topic: kinginyellow