The King in Yellow

The King in Yellow is a peculiar collection of semi-related short stories, the most famous of which have acquired the status of minor horror classics among aficionados of the form. 


The first six stories deal to a varying degree with a common thread of a mysterious evil book, one glance at which is enough to induce madness and death. The latter stories are more or less realistic romances set among young Bohemian artists in Paris's Latin Quarter, a thread that runs through several of the horror tales as well.


With its strange, imaginative blend of horror, science fiction, romance and lyrical prose, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a classic masterpiece of weird fiction. This series of vaguely connected stories is linked by the presence of a monstrous and suppressed book which brings fright, madness and spectral tragedy to all those who read it. An air of futility and doom pervade these pages like a sweet insidious poison.