The King in Yellow

The book is named after a fictional play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The first half of the book features highly esteemed weird stories, and the book is described by S.T. Joshi as a classic in the field of the supernatural. There are 10 stories, the first four of which, "The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon" and "The Yellow Sign", mention The King in Yellow, a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those who read it. "The Yellow Sign" inspired a film of the same name released in 2001.

THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS (Excerpt)

In the city of New York the summer of 1899 was


signalized by the dismantling of the Elevated Railroads. The summer


of 1900 will live in the memories of New York people for many a


cycle; the Dodge Statue was removed in that year. In the following


winter began that agitation for the repeal of the laws prohibiting


suicide which bore its final fruit in the month of April, 1920, when


the first Government Lethal Chamber was opened on Washington Square.

I had walked down that day from Dr. Archer's house


on Madison Avenue, where I had been as a mere formality. Ever since


that fall from my horse, four years before, I had been troubled at


times with pains in the back of my head and neck, but now for months


they had been absent, and the doctor sent me away that day saying


there was nothing more to be cured in me. It was hardly worth his fee


to be told that; I knew it myself. Still I did not grudge him the


money. What I minded was the mistake which he made at first. When


they picked me up from the pavement where I lay unconscious, and


somebody had mercifully sent a bullet through my horse's head, I was


carried to Dr. Archer, and he, pronouncing my brain affected, placed


me in his private asylum where I was obliged to endure treatment for


insanity. At last he decided that I was well, and I, knowing that my


mind had always been as sound as his, if not sounder, "paid my


tuition" as he jokingly called it, and left. I told him,


smiling, that I would get even with him for his mistake, and he


laughed heartily, and asked me to call once in a while. I did so,


hoping for a chance to even up accounts, but he gave me none, and I


told him I would wait.

The fall from my horse had fortunately left no


evil results; on the contrary it had changed my whole character for


the better. From a lazy young man about town, I had become active,


energetic, temperate, and above all—oh, above all else—ambitious.


There was only one thing which troubled me, I laughed at my own


uneasiness, and yet it troubled me.

During my convalescence I had bought and read for


the first time, The King in Yellow. I remember after finishing


the first act that it occurred to me that I had better stop. I


started up and flung the book into the fireplace; the volume struck


the barred grate and fell open on the hearth in the firelight. If I


had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I


should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up, my


eyes became riveted to the open page, and with a cry of terror, or


perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I


snatched the thing out of the coals and crept shaking to my bedroom,


where I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with


a horror which at times assails me yet...

Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an


American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short


stories entitled The King in Yellow, a collection of Art Nouveau short stories published in 1895. This included several famous weird short stories which are connected by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title, which drives those who read it insane. E. F. Bleiler described The King in Yellow as one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction. It was also strongly admired by H. P. Lovecraft and his circle.

Chambers returned to the weird genre in his later short story collections The Maker of Moons, The Mystery of Choice and The Tree of Heaven, but none earned him as much success as The King in Yellow. Some of Chambers's work contains elements of science fiction, such as In Search of the Unknown and Police!!!, about a zoologist who encounters monsters.

Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction


to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers had one of the


most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling


well and a handful achieving best-seller status. Many of his works were


also serialized in magazines.