The King in Yellow/Lovecraft

[Toddy]

I've been looking around for Lovecraftian horror stories that weren't actually written by Lovecraft for a while now, and came across The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers last month. Just started reading the used copy I got from Powell's the other night, and it's amazing how much Lovecraft cribbed from this collection, which was published in 1895. Chambers uses a mysterious play called The King in Yellow to link five stories, each of which generally deals with the play causing someone to go mad, have spooky visions of vistas on faraway planets, reel at this unimaginable horror from across the stars, and so on. He even refers to Hastur at times, a figure which Lovecraft of course borrowed for the Cthulhu mythos. Without Chambers, Lovecraft couldn't have written what he did.

Good stories, too (though they're not for those who find Lovecraft's racism offensive -- Chambers is a lot worse with nasty casual comments about Jews and the Chinese). More lighthearted than Lovecraft's mythos tales in many ways, with lots of dialogue and real-world settings -- as opposed to half-mad scholars in "witch-haunted Arkham" -- that actually reinforce the horror that inevitably develops. "The Repairer of Reputations" is a better exploration of madness than Lovecraft ever managed. There are only five stories linked in The King in Yellow, though. The rest are standard society-type short stories of which Chambers specialized in for the remainder of his career, and apparently made a lot of money by doing so. The introduction to the collection I bought is hilarious, in that the author shreds Chambers' entire work except for this one collection, bluntly saying numberous times that certain novels are "hysterical" or simply "not worth reading."

Anyhow, I know a number of Lovecraft fans lurk in pixel-haunted Qt3, so I thought I'd make mention of this. It's a must for anyone who likes Lovecraft's stuff.

Brett, haven't you been reading Chaosium's line? They're all white and the early ones have numbers on the side. Chambers was featured in volume 1. I read that back in 1994.

Seriously, look these up. Robert M. Price (editor of one of those crazy "let's dissect and analyze Lovecraft" zines) does most of the editing and the almost 20 volumes thus far pretty much make this [color=darkred]"I've been looking around for Lovecraftian horror stories that weren't actually written by Lovecraft for a while now"[/color] really easy. One of the more interesting ones is Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (vol 5) which is perfect for those all-too-common "Lovecraft did/DID NOT make up the Cthonians" arguments.

[Toddy]

Well, I didn't approach it like a research topic, and it's not like I was consumed with the idea; just seemed like something I should check out a while back when I started to get into an autumn/Hallowe'eny mood. I looked into the Chaosium stuff, but sort of assumed that most of it would be contemporary hack work, and I've no interest in that sort of thing. I saw the Chaosium collected Chambers, but it was more than double the price of the old Dover book that I got from Powell's (The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories of Robert W. Chambers), and I didn't think I wanted something that complete. I mean, everything I read online of Chambers' work was unbelievably negative, so I thought just going for the one cheap book was the best option. One of the references in the introduction in the Dover book cited a contemporary critic who said that Chambers was such an awful person and so lacking in talent that "the Devil would have no use for his soul." ;-) That introduction may be the best I've ever read for a "literary" collection; it's certainly the funniest. It makes me want to search out some of these Chambers society novels, to see how bad they really are.

I've got the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana. Which is okay, but a little too involved and RPG geeky for me. I am looking forward to this reprinting of Arkham Horror next spring, though.

[Toddy]

BTW, did you see Arkham Horror at GenCon?

[Don Quixote]

If you're looking for more authors that were big influences on ol' H.P.L., look for some of Lord Dunsany's old short story collections. Some have been reprinted in the aforementioned Chaosium line, some in a small-press book called The Hashish Man (the title of one of the stories in the book), and a bunch of them are on line as text files and e-book format (much of it was written before 1923, and is public domain now). Notable ideas that Dunsany inspired in HPL were the alternate pantheon of gods (explored in the 1904 book The Gods of Pegana), and the Lands of Dream stories.

Dunsany stands out in my mind for the sense of wonder he can still invoke in this bitter, jaded ex-fantasy buff. I wish more modern fantasy authors had been inspred by him and his weird, dream-like style than the average Tolkien rip-off that lines the shelves nowadays. oh well.

Check out Arthur Machen's stuff, especially The Great God Pan.

Also, check out Lovecraft's essay on supernatural fiction -- entitled something like The Art of the Supernatural (but I don't really remember, it's been a long time since I read it.) Lovecraft analyzes the books in the genre he admires, might be another starting place.

junior allen

[Ben Sones]

Originally Posted by Brett Todd

Good stories, too (though they're not for those who find Lovecraft's racism offensive -- Chambers is a lot worse with nasty casual comments about Jews and the Chinese).

I'm not convinced that Lovecraft's "racism" (something people seem to take for granted) was an actual personality trait that existed outside of his writing. His wife (whom he was very fond of, by all accounts) was Jewish.

Hey Brett,
Good point on price and I'd actually recommend Chthulu's Heirs as non-hack contemporary author Cthulhu fiction. I'd also recommend some of the Delta Green fiction because John Tynes (who worked on Magic:TG) and Scott Glancy, are pretty damn good. Not great but I'd wager you'd love Glancy's story from "Dark Theaters" that details the subsequent military raid on Innsmouth from a soldier's POV. So good I wish I'd wrote it.

Anyway, yes, I played Arkham Horror at Gen Con with the Chaosium people and... well, it's pretty much the same as the original with better artwork. I didn't play it long though, I had things to do. But I'll likley buy it when it comes out. Now... if only I had someone to play it with....

Lovecraft's racism was "of his time" so it's actually a pretty unfair allegation. He was hardly a "racist" so much as he had beliefs we would call racist today and that shocks some readers (who have little sense of history). It's there to see though, specifically in his abhorance and fear of native cultures, how he makes dusky people suspect, and how "cross-breeding" between races is his sweetest taboo. I'm sure those thoughts and suspiscions existed outside his writing to the extent they existed anywhere in America and Providence at that time.

I have his bio (by Joshi) and probably should read it because... I had no idea he had married....

[Sparky]

Originally Posted by Bub, Andrew

Lovecraft's racism was "of his time" so it's actually a pretty unfair allegation.

Well, I don't know -- from the biography I read, he hated almost *everybody*. Jewish, Irish, Italian, Chinese...yes, at the time (especially in New York) there was a lot of anti-immigrant feeling, but his was particularly virulent. He couldn't (or wouldn't) find work, and was full of that kind of racist anger fueled by depression and frustration: "all these insert-race-here are coming in and taking our jobs away".

As for his wife, he lived with her only very briefly (less than a year). He married soon after his mother died, and he was quite the mama's boy, not really the kind of guy who could live with a wife. Sad, strange, troubled guy, but a good writer.

[wumpus]

Just like Steve Bauman! Well, except for the good writer part.

[Toddy]

I agree, but I wouldn't tie Lovecraft too closely to what was going on in America at that time because he pretty much hated America. Lovecraft was a big British Empire type. His biggest problems were with people from the Far East, in large part because they had been demonized in the popular British press in the early 20th century. And I think that the marriage was meaningless, too, because I don't believe he ever really lived with his wife. If anything, you'd have to take its brevity as an example of his racism in action, not the reverse.

In any case, Chambers and Lovecraft would have gotten along great, judging by what Chambers writes in "The Repairer of Reputations." Namely that Jews were forbidden from entering the USA of the 1920s for reasons on "national self-preservation" and that a new independent "negro state" called Suanee was established, along the same lines. And Chambers wasn't kidding with such comments, as he establishes this futuristic USA as a model of stability and prosperity. The real howler is that he ends that paragraph with "bigotry and intolerance were laid in their graves and kindness and charity began to draw warring sects together." Uh-huh.

Anyways, I now understand why critics savage Chambers. "The Yellow Sign" and "The Repairer of Reputations" and good and creepy, but the rest of the material in The King in Yellow is almost unbelievably bad. Sentimenal tripe with obvious twist endings that rival Rod Serling in terms of making people groan. Anyhow, I might as well finish the collection. Needless to say, I'm glad I didn't spend $20 on that Chaosium collection.

Ok, I'm no expert on wacky Canadian pricing but The Hastur Cycle, which is the volume that collects the two Chambers stories you do like (and not the rest) and also includes stories from Bierce, Wagner, Machen, Lovecraft, Campbell, Derleth, etc., is priced at the typical large paperback price of $10.95 US.

Here's a link to the book series I'm talking about:

I see, sadly, that many are already out of print. Ai! http://www.chaosium.com/cthulhu/fiction/

[Miramon]

I'm not sure who came up with some of these names originally like Hali, Carcosa, etc. These authors enjoyed swapping names and distant allusions around. Chambers' King in Yellow is the earliest mention of it I'm aware of, but who knows, maybe Machen or someone like that had an earlier use of it, or it may have been an allusion to some "yellow" period writer or some other obscure reference.

The most surprising King in Yellow reference I've seen was a short story of that name by Raymond Chandler of all people, who I suspect in general disdained fantasy and horror stories if he even deigned to let them come to his attention. Still, it seems doubtful he chose that name randomly, it must have been an allusion to something, if not to Chambers.

[Toddy]

Bub, I've got a lot of the work that influenced Lovecraft. And a lot of the major work that Lovecraft influenced. I don't really need collections like these, but thanks for the info.

As for The King In Yellow...wow. I don't know if I've ever read a collection of short stories so uniformly awful. Aside from The Yellow Sign and The Repairer of Reputations, Chambers apparently wrote nothing but mawkish drivel. I managed to make it through to the end of the collection, which includes both The King in Yellow's supernatural stories and selected other pieces of Chambers, but barely. It's hard to believe that Chambers wrote those initial two horror stories without serious outside assistance. I wonder if he perhaps borrowed those pieces from a friend, or outright purchased them, and then used the general theme in other stories, which are grossly inferior. If not for Lovecraft, this garbage wouldn't be in print.

[Dave Markell]

I have to agree. I was rereading my Lovecraft collection last month and did a net search for authors who influenced him. I discovered the entire King in Yellow cycle posted on a number of websites and forced myself to plow through them. I found the stories to generally be horrid, and I am someone who can read and appreciate literature from all periods on its own merits.

In other words, I think Chambers sucks :)

A variation on this theme: Has anyone read the Arkham House collection The Horror in the Museum? It's mostly (if at all) stuff written by other people that Lovecraft tweaked, edited or rewrote. Mostly good. I especially liked the The Diary of Alonzo Typer. (Then againb, I was about 15 when I last read it; I'm not sure hwo it would stand up now.)

Peter

man, my proofreading abilities have suffered. "if at all" = if not all

[Toddy]

There are other editions of this stuff as well. I've seen at least two cheap paperback collections of short stories edited by Lovecraft in Canadian bookstores. Forget the publisher, but it's not Arkham or Chaosium. It's the same house doing the August Derleth collections. They may be British/Commonwealth-only editions, as the rights to Lovecraft's work seem to be held by different publishers in different regions. The Canadian editions of the Lovecraft collections I bought in the early 80s were completely different than those available in the US at the same time. I think that's changed now, though, as we get those Del Rey trade paperbacks, which I'm pretty sure are identical to what's available in the US.

The only Derleth book I have is The Cthulu Mythos, published by Barnes & Noble. Is that the one?

Peter

Originally Posted by Brett Todd

There are other editions of this stuff as well. I've seen at least two cheap paperback collections of short stories edited by Lovecraft in Canadian bookstores. Forget the publisher, but it's not Arkham or Chaosium. It's the same house doing the August Derleth collections. They may be British/Commonwealth-only editions, as the rights to Lovecraft's work seem to be held by different publishers in different regions. The Canadian editions of the Lovecraft collections I bought in the early 80s were completely different than those available in the US at the same time. I think that's changed now, though, as we get those Del Rey trade paperbacks, which I'm pretty sure are identical to what's available in the US.

Brett,

I'd be curious to know the contents of those books. My hunch is that they've split up The Horror in the Museum (which is close to 400 pages) into separate volumes. But it's just a hunch.

Peter

Try these two links. The King in Yellow is great, try some of Ambrose Bierce's stuff, and check out Melmoth the Wanderer.

http://www.blackmask.com/page.php

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/books/etext.html

[Toddy]

Peter, I was in a Chapters here last night and looked for those Lovecraft edited collections. Didn't find them. Probably haven't seen them for a few months. I think the title of one was The Loved Dead, but I'm really not sure. Last night I did see for the first time that Horror in the Museum trade paperback you were talking about. So I get the feeling that the regular cheap paperbacks are now out of print and you have to shell out more for these trades. It was published Carrol & Graf, the same company that did the smaller books, so that's the only thing I can think of. The second cheapie might actually have been called The Horror in the Museum, so the current book might just be a trade version of it with a higher quality cover.

Oddly enough, what I also saw last night, for the first time in years, were two of the old Del Rey Lovecraft collections from the 80s. These have been out of print for a while now, as so much Lovecraft went to trade paperback when he got hot in the mid-90s (there's even a Penguin collection of his short stories now) so somebody must have dragged them out of a warehouse somwhere. Were still $5.99 US/$6.99 CDN and the printing date on them was 1993.

Brett,

Thanks for checking. I suspect I've got all these in my Arkham House The Horror in the Museum (which includes The Loved Dead, Horror and about 20 other pieces).

Peter