The King in Yellow

Do you know the latest HBO thriller “True Detective”? If not, do yourself a favour and watch it immediately, it is one of the greatest TV series in history. If you do know about it, you are here for a reason: perhaps you have seen there is one recurring reference throughout the first series to a somewhat hazy “Yellow King”. It looks like this is the book the characters in True Detective keep coming back at. And this is a book as dark and weird and metaphysical as the whole series. Robert W. Chambers is a true master and actually the very founder of “weird fiction”. Do you love H.P. Lovecraft? Well, Lovecraft keeps Chambers in high regard as a fore-runner. Do check out this gorgeous book, you will not regret it.

Quote from the book: It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in The King in Yellow, all felt that human nature could not bear the strain nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect.