The King in Yellow
Ratings109
Average rating3.3
A collection of short stories all surrounding about a play named, ‘The King In Yellow'. All who see this play or read the screenplay have strange things happen to them. The longest, and arguably best story in the collection, is called ‘The Repairer of Reputations', though all the other stories were also very good. For fans of cosmic horror/weird fiction.
The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask and The Yellow Sign are the highlights, as well as the excerpts in the chapter headings. The rest of the stories range from okay to dull. All in all an okay short story collection. Would have rated it higher if it included only the essential Weird Fiction stories and the Prophet's Paradise.
Read this because of Lovecraft praises and trying to find a novel I remember only fragments, I was a bit surprised by the story as it slowly descends into madness but I can see the appeal and relationship with Lovecraft's work.
I guess I was expecting something different when my friends and I picked this one up. It's supposedly what inspired Lovecraft to create his entire mythos, so I was expecting something more...I don't know...existential horror? Unsettling? I didn't really get much of that. It was a fine read, just not what I was expecting, I guess.
It's a series of four short stories about a mysterious book, 'The King In Yellow', where anyone who picks it up to read goes mad. Each of the four stories features a different person in a different setting, but beyond the common thread of the book, there isn't a lot to really explain what this book is, where it came from, or why it is the way it is. As the reader, you're just along for the 'how is this person going to manifest their madness' ride, with no real backstory or explanation.
There's a lot of unreliable narrator business going on, obviously, which I thought was fun. You're never quite sure if things actually happen the way things are written, and there's some room to draw conclusions of your own at the end of each story. There's also some unexpected humor written in by the author in the form of descriptions of places and people, which I enjoyed but also felt tonally different than what I was expecting out of the story.
So, not bad, but also don't go into this expecting Lovecraft. It's a neat read featuring unreliable narrators, but I really didn't feel existentially horrified or even mildly concerned at all while reading it.
"Bending, with a breaking heart, I touched the marble drapery with my lips, then crept back into the silent house."
Many wonderful story elements which stick with and linger in your mind. I think there's a bit of tendency to only read the first set of stories and skip the back half of the book, since they don't directly relate to the titular fiction. But they weave thematic threads and vague connections which work very well together.
Was only interested in the stories invloving the king in yellow, the rest of them were not related at all
A collection of late Victorian period strange stories. On the surface these are rather tame by today's standards. A modern reader will have read many better read and more original seeming stories.
However, The lead story which in turn is a collection of related short stories hints that there is a greater ‘world' in which the stories live. It suggests that this world is controlled by supernatural powers and access is via a mysterious book called ‘The King in Yellow'.
It is easy to see how some might think that this story was the inspiration behind Lovecraft and a host of subsequent ‘weird fiction' and horror writers. I don't know if this is true or not, but it is believable.
Should you read this story? If you like Victorian Ghost Stories or ‘Weird Fiction', sure. If you hoping this is something of the calibre of a Lovecraft story, then no. That all said, it's a quick read so dive in if it piques your interest.
I'm off to find some yellow paper to wrap some of my books in.
4/5 if not for being dragged down by the horrifically boring 2nd half which contains a string of uninteresting, needlessly overwritten stories that are not memorable in the slightest. A shame because ‘The Repairer of Reputations' is a borderline masterpiece, and the other stories surrounding the Yellow King are also enrapturing.
Really enjoyed the supernatural stories, but wasn't so sold on the others
too many stories unrelated to the yellow mythos, and are in fact just slice of life, towards the end. Without them I'd give it a 4. I'm not sure why these wee all compiled together.
It was better than expected, very detailed and well written. A few stories were shorter than others but it did remain interesting.
It's a bit uneven... it starts as quite OK horror and ends as quite OK James Joyce.
Essentially a late 19th century creepypasta with Lovecraftian tones (aren't all of them? and in this case, I think, predating Lovecraft's work). Creepy, but not really scary. It's the sort of book that is creepy because you wonder if there's any truth to it, the sort of book that makes you want to open up wikipedia and go down a rabbit hole. I think the creepy factor of those books was significantly more back before there were things like the Lovecraft wiki.
The King in Yellow is an early collection of short stories that explore a fictional play called The King in Yellow that brings misfortune and madness upon those who read its cursed second act. Its Weird tales inspired the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and something about it has always fascinated me. So I finally got my hands on a copy and found it actually more accessible than Lovecraft's writing, but perhaps a little underwhelmed overall. That said, I am fascinated still to explore what it has inspired, whether this particular lore has expanded with other authors. We shall see!
Remember liking this a lot, thought the commentary on gov's treatment of mental illness was striking. Want to go back & re-read sometime!
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers is a collection of loosely connected short stories. Some tales seem connected by a shared cosmic horror mythos of The King in Yellow, and others were simply romantic stories with little if any connection to the former. I read this book because two stories in it were selected by the HOWL Society book club as a reading to accompany our book of the week, The Final Reconciliation by Todd Keisling, which is a contemporary expansion on Chamber's King in Yellow mythos. I enjoyed those cosmic horror stories, and was reminded of Lovecraft as mystery, madness, menace, and the supernatural seemed to weave together throughout The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, In The Court of the Dragon, and The Yellow Sign. I also enjoyed The Demoislle D'ys which had dark fairy tale vibes and reminded me a bit of Angela Carter. The remaining stories did not interest me as much. Even the stories I liked seemed to lack a certain something to completely gel. Perhaps, like Lovecraft, I felt there was too much non-supernatural content, building up to a climax with too few answers. I would give the stories I liked 4/5 and the stories I didn't care for as much 2/5. Overall I rate this collection ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A good horror book that gives an interesting picture of what people in the 1890s thought the 1920s would be like. I found it particularly interesting that they still foretold a war with Germany! It was also interesting to see “undesirable” laws keeping certain groups out of the United States. Keep in mind this was before the Holocaust cast such laws in a very dark light.
Regarding the stories themselves, it's interesting to see that written horror hasn't changed that much in over 100 years. It still much more covers the foreboding associated with the unknown, and not understanding death. The world Chambers writes in is still recognizable as mostly modern. Science has changed so much, but it's interesting to see the way Chambers treats science and it's potential misuse, as well as how he treats the Middle Ages. The Franco-Prussian War is relatively little known in the US today, so getting a fairly contemporary account is interesting. I'm not sure I like the end having love stories tacked on, or that they were interesting, but I guess that's how they wrote back then. Overall, an excellent book for those looking for some older horror, especially those wanting to see where HP Lovecraft got some of his inspiration.
Really enjoyed the “King in Yellow” stories. I thought these were extremely imaginative and full of suspense but I found some of the other stories disappointing.
So I've jumped on the bandwagon for this 19th century collection of short stories along with the hordes of other True Detective fans. Passing references to dim Carcosa and the Yellow King had me eager to dissect the text for clues to decipher this Lovecraftian police procedural. The finale came halfway through reading the book and suddenly it felt like all of us “had been studying for a test that never came.” The book isn't relevant to the show.
So we're left with the text. And while I liked the idea of the several of the short stories making reference to a dangerous play “The King in Yellow” which has the power to drive the reader into madness upon reading the second act, it wasn't enough. Each story felt disjointed in the telling. Many slowly built a sense of dread only to have it finish abruptly with some throwaway line. It's Horatio Caine reading Lovecraft.