Courtesy of Jimster
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Rehearsals for Oblivion
Rehearsals for Oblivion (Act I) (Paperback)by Peter Worthy (Editor)
***
Book DescriptionThe stage is set. The curtain lifts. Behold the man in the pallid mask, the King in Yellow. Rehearsals for Oblivion: Tales of the King in Yellow, ACT I is the first volume in a comprehensive set of weird fiction and poetry focused on one of the genre's most mysterious and intriguing figures. Contributors include Richard L. Tierney, William Laughlin, Mark McLaughlin, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., John Tynes, Will Murray, G. Warlock Vance, Ann K. Schwader, Roger Johnson & Robert M. Price, and many others. The world is a stage . . . filled with nightmares.
***
By
Matthew T. Carpenter (San Antonio, TX, USA) - Rehearsals for Oblivion, Act One is a book of fiction inspired by the stories of Robert W. Chambers, particularly The King in Yellow.
This is a subgenre I have always been fond of, that I have most often encountered in collections of Lovecraftian stories. Purists would argue whether Yellow Sign works should be called mythos fiction (of course most HPL fans like most weird fiction, including Chambers' stuff, so this is where the audience is). HPL admired the Yellow Sign stories and briefly mentioned a few of the names and ideas in some of his own stories, but otherwise was not a big fan of Chambers' books.
Most mythos fans know of the ambiguous use of the name Hastur, first as a pastoral spirit by Bierce, then as a place name as well as an entity name by Chambers, before it was co-opted as the Unspeakable name of Cthulhu's half brother by Derleth. Maybe this is why Yellow Sign fiction has ended up part of mythos collections? Compared to Cthulhu stories, the relative volume of Yellow Sign stories has been small in the past, but here we have an entire book of them, most of them new, labeled volume one (I don't know if this promises a second book or it's just being hopefull).
Maybe we are on the edge of a Chamber inspired fiction deluge; the enterprising Rainfall Books has started a chapbook magazine called Death Songs of Carcosa devoted to this genre, and have also published some of Chambers' dark poetry and a chapbook by Pulver, Carcosa: Where the Long Shadows Fall.
This is just like the way Clark Ashton Smith inspired fiction has previously been inextricably linked to the mythos, but is now finding its own niche in books like The Last Continent and Lost Worlds of Space and Time. Unfortunately I don't think any of Rainfall's titles are available through Amazon. I'm not sure why. Most readers attracted to this title don't need to be introduced to Chambers but those who do can find the Yellow Signs stories online for free. Another good source that also has some previous Yellow Sign fiction (including a great story by Karl Edward Wagner) is The Hastur Cycle from Chaosium, one of the best of the cycle books. I think it might be hard to come to this collection de novo, so new fans really should read the Chambers stories first.
The current book is published by Dimension Books, an imprint of Elder Signs Press. I am a bit fuzzy about how this works; I think that Dimension Books is devoted to subgenres of weird fiction that may be of interest to the general horror or Lovecraft fan. Why ever it appears from Dimension Books instead of ESP is irrelevant however. It's a magnificent achievement and we must be grateful whatever the provenance. It is a handsome trade paperback, well made like all ESP titles. Page count of the stories and poems is a very generous 246. I wish there were authors' notes or an editorial introduction to put it all into context. It lists at $19.95 but is discounted to $12.21 on Amazon and available for free shipping if you get $25 worth of stuff.
The marvelous cover art is by Tim Wilson, with the cowled, bloody and appropriately obscure face of the King in Yellow arising between the two moons of distant Carcosa. Editing by Peter Worthy was flawless. My only beef with the layout was that across the top of each of the facing pages was the book title: Act One and Rehearsals for Oblivion, rather than the title and author of the story occupying those pages. That wasn't very useful!
Here are the contents: The Curse of the King by Richard L. Tierney -poem The Dream-Leech by William Laughlin Ambrose by John Scott Tynes In Memoriam by Roger Johnson & Robert M. Price Cordelia's Song from The King in Yellow by Vincent Starrett - poem Chartreuse by Michael Minnis Cat With the Hand of a Child by Mark McLaughlin Lilloth by Susan McAdam Reflections in Carcosa by Mark Francis - poem Broadalbin by John Scott Tynes The Adventure of the Yellow Sign by G. Warlock Vance Tattered Souls by Ann K. Schwader What Sad Drum? by Steve Lines - poem The Machine in Yellow by Carlos Orsi Martinho The Peace That Will Not Come by Peter A. Worthy The Purple Emperor by Will Murray A Line of Questions by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr - poem. Yellow is the Color of Tomorrow by Ron Shiflet A quick review of the author list shows many names familiar to mythos fans. Here's another reason Yellow Sign fiction has always been in mythos collections before: the authors are part of the ever widening Lovecraft Circle! Susan McAdam created the artwork for Eldritch Blue, Steve Lines is an editor (maybe editor is too small a word for Mr. Lines!) and author for Rainfall Books and John Scott Tynes has given us much of the Delta Green fiction. Stories by Schwader, Minnis, Worthy, Pulver and Shiflet appear regularly in mythos collections. Robert Price is a veritable mythos maven. Mark McLaughlin gave us Shoggoth Cacciatore, and has storied in Warfear and Lost Worlds of Space and Time, Vol 2. Richard Tierney has published The Gardens of Lucullus and House of the Toad. G. Warlock Vance is relatively newer on the scene with a story in LWOSAT, vol 2 and Lovecraft's Disciples #3. The only other publication by Mark Francis I know is a poem in LWOSAT Vol 2. Vincent Starrett was the recipient of some letters from HPL, I believe, and his poem Cordelia's Song dates to 1938. William Laughlin is a new name for me but I think he's written a few horror stores here and there. I think of Will Murray as more of an HPL scholar than a fiction author, but maybe that's going to change? Carlos Orsi Martinho has a few stories scattered around in mythos magazines. Actually, of all the stories in the current volume I was most intrigued by his, set in Brazil. Just like Kurodahan Press has opened a window into Japanese mythos fiction for us, is it too much to hope that there is a mythos anthology by all Brazilian authors being kicked around out there somewhere? OK, regarding the poems, they were of somewhat higher quality than the typical mythos-inspired work, but none of them are as evocative as Cassilda's Song by Chambers himself: Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink beneath the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa. The Pulver work that closes the book, however, must be singled out for praise. I am only briefly going to touch on the stories; actually as I progressed through the anthology I began to worry that maybe I was admiring it more than enjoying it. Then I reread the Tynes and the Minnis stories and was reassured. The level of craftsmanship for each of the stories was quite high. *** Spoilers may follow *** The typical (if there is a typical) Yellow Sign story relates to someone involved in either a new production of The King in Yellow, or watching a new production of The King in Yellow or reading a newly discovered copy/translation of The King in Yellow. The Dream Leech chronicles the motives of man dedicating his life to destroying copies of a certain play. Ambrose, however, is very different. It follows the life of a resident of Carcosa on his strange and lonely adventures. In Memoriam links The King in Yellow with its contemporary, The Picture of Dorian Gray (tell the truth now, don't you wish your local microbrewery had a lager called Dorian Gray so you could order a pitcher?). I thought it was OK, not too bad. Chartreuse by Minnis may have been my favorite story here; it follows a group of German soldiers in their long retreat from the eastern front (reminding me of the great classic book, The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer). The sniper has a worn out copy of a forgotten play...Mr. Minnis is fiendishly talented! Lilloth is also very original, telling how a child (or is she really a child?) comes to dominate the minds of the young preteens around her. Broadalbin is the story of a drugged out petty crook and murderer who hides out in a hotel with some odd guests, and thinks he does so of his own free will. Gosh, can John Tynes write! I am grateful for the two stories here but I'm greedy! I want more Yellow Sign, more mythos and more Delta Green from him! Maybe Broadalbin one was my favorite story. The Adventure of the Yellow Sign was an OK Sherlock Holmes story. Tattered Souls is one of the few previously published stories here; it was in Schwader's Strange Stars and Alien Shadows. It is a terrific little tale of a counselor who does past lives regressions. The Machine in Yellow is the wonderful Brazilian story, about a new production of The King in Yellow but with a mechanical actor for the king. The Peace That Will Not Come reacquaints us with the same government agents we met in Stacked Actors in Eldritch Blue, who are now investigating some long gone by happenings in an abandoned asylum. Unfortunately, as much as I liked this anthology and respect Mr. Worthy's efforts, this story just left me flat. Unlike most of the other tales here, Yellow is the Color of Tomorrow is set in the same time and world as the original story by Chambers. A bored bourgeois buys a book that has a profound effect on him. This effort by Ron Shiflet was very good indeed. A psychic in The Purple Emperor struggles to prevent the king from entering our world. OK for me, readable, nothing special. So in summary, a marvelous collection. It is the only new anthology available devoted to fiction inspired by Chambers' masterwork and that makes it self recommending. You also be assured that it is a first class production in every way, with top flight stories by some of the best weird fiction authors writing today. What's more, it is heavily discounted by Amazon, so go for it!
***
Book DescriptionThe stage is set. The curtain lifts. Behold the man in the pallid mask, the King in Yellow. Rehearsals for Oblivion: Tales of the King in Yellow, ACT I is the first volume in a comprehensive set of weird fiction and poetry focused on one of the genre's most mysterious and intriguing figures. Contributors include Richard L. Tierney, William Laughlin, Mark McLaughlin, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., John Tynes, Will Murray, G. Warlock Vance, Ann K. Schwader, Roger Johnson & Robert M. Price, and many others. The world is a stage . . . filled with nightmares.
***
By
Matthew T. Carpenter (San Antonio, TX, USA) - Rehearsals for Oblivion, Act One is a book of fiction inspired by the stories of Robert W. Chambers, particularly The King in Yellow.
This is a subgenre I have always been fond of, that I have most often encountered in collections of Lovecraftian stories. Purists would argue whether Yellow Sign works should be called mythos fiction (of course most HPL fans like most weird fiction, including Chambers' stuff, so this is where the audience is). HPL admired the Yellow Sign stories and briefly mentioned a few of the names and ideas in some of his own stories, but otherwise was not a big fan of Chambers' books.
Most mythos fans know of the ambiguous use of the name Hastur, first as a pastoral spirit by Bierce, then as a place name as well as an entity name by Chambers, before it was co-opted as the Unspeakable name of Cthulhu's half brother by Derleth. Maybe this is why Yellow Sign fiction has ended up part of mythos collections? Compared to Cthulhu stories, the relative volume of Yellow Sign stories has been small in the past, but here we have an entire book of them, most of them new, labeled volume one (I don't know if this promises a second book or it's just being hopefull).
Maybe we are on the edge of a Chamber inspired fiction deluge; the enterprising Rainfall Books has started a chapbook magazine called Death Songs of Carcosa devoted to this genre, and have also published some of Chambers' dark poetry and a chapbook by Pulver, Carcosa: Where the Long Shadows Fall.
This is just like the way Clark Ashton Smith inspired fiction has previously been inextricably linked to the mythos, but is now finding its own niche in books like The Last Continent and Lost Worlds of Space and Time. Unfortunately I don't think any of Rainfall's titles are available through Amazon. I'm not sure why. Most readers attracted to this title don't need to be introduced to Chambers but those who do can find the Yellow Signs stories online for free. Another good source that also has some previous Yellow Sign fiction (including a great story by Karl Edward Wagner) is The Hastur Cycle from Chaosium, one of the best of the cycle books. I think it might be hard to come to this collection de novo, so new fans really should read the Chambers stories first.
The current book is published by Dimension Books, an imprint of Elder Signs Press. I am a bit fuzzy about how this works; I think that Dimension Books is devoted to subgenres of weird fiction that may be of interest to the general horror or Lovecraft fan. Why ever it appears from Dimension Books instead of ESP is irrelevant however. It's a magnificent achievement and we must be grateful whatever the provenance. It is a handsome trade paperback, well made like all ESP titles. Page count of the stories and poems is a very generous 246. I wish there were authors' notes or an editorial introduction to put it all into context. It lists at $19.95 but is discounted to $12.21 on Amazon and available for free shipping if you get $25 worth of stuff.
The marvelous cover art is by Tim Wilson, with the cowled, bloody and appropriately obscure face of the King in Yellow arising between the two moons of distant Carcosa. Editing by Peter Worthy was flawless. My only beef with the layout was that across the top of each of the facing pages was the book title: Act One and Rehearsals for Oblivion, rather than the title and author of the story occupying those pages. That wasn't very useful!
Here are the contents: The Curse of the King by Richard L. Tierney -poem The Dream-Leech by William Laughlin Ambrose by John Scott Tynes In Memoriam by Roger Johnson & Robert M. Price Cordelia's Song from The King in Yellow by Vincent Starrett - poem Chartreuse by Michael Minnis Cat With the Hand of a Child by Mark McLaughlin Lilloth by Susan McAdam Reflections in Carcosa by Mark Francis - poem Broadalbin by John Scott Tynes The Adventure of the Yellow Sign by G. Warlock Vance Tattered Souls by Ann K. Schwader What Sad Drum? by Steve Lines - poem The Machine in Yellow by Carlos Orsi Martinho The Peace That Will Not Come by Peter A. Worthy The Purple Emperor by Will Murray A Line of Questions by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr - poem. Yellow is the Color of Tomorrow by Ron Shiflet A quick review of the author list shows many names familiar to mythos fans. Here's another reason Yellow Sign fiction has always been in mythos collections before: the authors are part of the ever widening Lovecraft Circle! Susan McAdam created the artwork for Eldritch Blue, Steve Lines is an editor (maybe editor is too small a word for Mr. Lines!) and author for Rainfall Books and John Scott Tynes has given us much of the Delta Green fiction. Stories by Schwader, Minnis, Worthy, Pulver and Shiflet appear regularly in mythos collections. Robert Price is a veritable mythos maven. Mark McLaughlin gave us Shoggoth Cacciatore, and has storied in Warfear and Lost Worlds of Space and Time, Vol 2. Richard Tierney has published The Gardens of Lucullus and House of the Toad. G. Warlock Vance is relatively newer on the scene with a story in LWOSAT, vol 2 and Lovecraft's Disciples #3. The only other publication by Mark Francis I know is a poem in LWOSAT Vol 2. Vincent Starrett was the recipient of some letters from HPL, I believe, and his poem Cordelia's Song dates to 1938. William Laughlin is a new name for me but I think he's written a few horror stores here and there. I think of Will Murray as more of an HPL scholar than a fiction author, but maybe that's going to change? Carlos Orsi Martinho has a few stories scattered around in mythos magazines. Actually, of all the stories in the current volume I was most intrigued by his, set in Brazil. Just like Kurodahan Press has opened a window into Japanese mythos fiction for us, is it too much to hope that there is a mythos anthology by all Brazilian authors being kicked around out there somewhere? OK, regarding the poems, they were of somewhat higher quality than the typical mythos-inspired work, but none of them are as evocative as Cassilda's Song by Chambers himself: Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink beneath the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa. The Pulver work that closes the book, however, must be singled out for praise. I am only briefly going to touch on the stories; actually as I progressed through the anthology I began to worry that maybe I was admiring it more than enjoying it. Then I reread the Tynes and the Minnis stories and was reassured. The level of craftsmanship for each of the stories was quite high. *** Spoilers may follow *** The typical (if there is a typical) Yellow Sign story relates to someone involved in either a new production of The King in Yellow, or watching a new production of The King in Yellow or reading a newly discovered copy/translation of The King in Yellow. The Dream Leech chronicles the motives of man dedicating his life to destroying copies of a certain play. Ambrose, however, is very different. It follows the life of a resident of Carcosa on his strange and lonely adventures. In Memoriam links The King in Yellow with its contemporary, The Picture of Dorian Gray (tell the truth now, don't you wish your local microbrewery had a lager called Dorian Gray so you could order a pitcher?). I thought it was OK, not too bad. Chartreuse by Minnis may have been my favorite story here; it follows a group of German soldiers in their long retreat from the eastern front (reminding me of the great classic book, The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer). The sniper has a worn out copy of a forgotten play...Mr. Minnis is fiendishly talented! Lilloth is also very original, telling how a child (or is she really a child?) comes to dominate the minds of the young preteens around her. Broadalbin is the story of a drugged out petty crook and murderer who hides out in a hotel with some odd guests, and thinks he does so of his own free will. Gosh, can John Tynes write! I am grateful for the two stories here but I'm greedy! I want more Yellow Sign, more mythos and more Delta Green from him! Maybe Broadalbin one was my favorite story. The Adventure of the Yellow Sign was an OK Sherlock Holmes story. Tattered Souls is one of the few previously published stories here; it was in Schwader's Strange Stars and Alien Shadows. It is a terrific little tale of a counselor who does past lives regressions. The Machine in Yellow is the wonderful Brazilian story, about a new production of The King in Yellow but with a mechanical actor for the king. The Peace That Will Not Come reacquaints us with the same government agents we met in Stacked Actors in Eldritch Blue, who are now investigating some long gone by happenings in an abandoned asylum. Unfortunately, as much as I liked this anthology and respect Mr. Worthy's efforts, this story just left me flat. Unlike most of the other tales here, Yellow is the Color of Tomorrow is set in the same time and world as the original story by Chambers. A bored bourgeois buys a book that has a profound effect on him. This effort by Ron Shiflet was very good indeed. A psychic in The Purple Emperor struggles to prevent the king from entering our world. OK for me, readable, nothing special. So in summary, a marvelous collection. It is the only new anthology available devoted to fiction inspired by Chambers' masterwork and that makes it self recommending. You also be assured that it is a first class production in every way, with top flight stories by some of the best weird fiction authors writing today. What's more, it is heavily discounted by Amazon, so go for it!
Vincent Starrett's Poem (1938)
Information found:
Original
Reprints
1971. The Spawn of Cthulhu (1971, Lin Carter Ballantine Adult Fantasy, Catalog ID: #02394, $0.95, Paperback, Anthology)
1976. Weird Tales (1976, Peter Haining Neville Spearman, ISBN-10: 0859780201, 3.50, 264 pages, Hardcover, Anthology)
1978. Weird Tales Vol. 1 (1978, Peter Haining Sphere, ISBN-10: 0722142595, 85p, 238 pages, Paperback, Anthology)
1976. Weird Tales (1976, Peter Haining Neville Spearman, ISBN-10: 0859780201, 3.50, 264 pages, Hardcover, Anthology)
1978. Weird Tales Vol. 1 (1978, Peter Haining Sphere, ISBN-10: 0722142595, 85p, 238 pages, Paperback, Anthology)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Fictional Story of KIY
{Thom Ryng is a fiction writer who expanded upon the KIY MYthology}
The King in Yellow
by Thom Ryng
by Thom Ryng
Printed: 112 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, black and white interior ink
Description:
Between the covers of this small, unassuming book lies a tale one hundred years in the making. Banned by the governments of Europe upon its publication, burned by the zealots of religion and sanity, its very name only whispered in the shadows by decadent artists: THE KING IN YELLOW, a play for the damned and the lost. Armitage House is proud to present this notorious work of occult literature for the first time in paperback.
($14.95)
Hobgoblin Press Edition
Hobgoblin Press
THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert W. Chambers
Back in print after too many years, this edition of THE KING IN YELLOW is a faithful reprinting of the original, unedited edition. Here are all the stories as they originally appeared. This collection is an important milestone in the history of weird literature providing not only the theme of the mysterious, lethal book but also being an important influence on H. P. Lovecraft. Robert W. Chambers would go on to become a successful romance novelist but it is for THE KING IN YELLOW that he is primarily remembered. The first stories in the collection revolve around the infamous play, "The King in Yellow", and the horror fate that befalls any foolish enough to read it. For sheer imaginative power, the first story, "The Repairer of Reputations", is hard to beat. Upon it's first publication, THE KING IN YELLOW created a sensation as nothing like it had been seen before. $4.95
Back in print after too many years, this edition of THE KING IN YELLOW is a faithful reprinting of the original, unedited edition. Here are all the stories as they originally appeared. This collection is an important milestone in the history of weird literature providing not only the theme of the mysterious, lethal book but also being an important influence on H. P. Lovecraft. Robert W. Chambers would go on to become a successful romance novelist but it is for THE KING IN YELLOW that he is primarily remembered. The first stories in the collection revolve around the infamous play, "The King in Yellow", and the horror fate that befalls any foolish enough to read it. For sheer imaginative power, the first story, "The Repairer of Reputations", is hard to beat. Upon it's first publication, THE KING IN YELLOW created a sensation as nothing like it had been seen before. $4.95
King in Yellow Forward to the 1938 edition (Rupert Hughes)
The King in YellowForward to the 1938 editionby Rupert Hughes
I ENVY those who will read for the first time this ever-young story that I read in my youth. Yet on re-reading it, I find that it has lost none of its original savor or poignancy in its forty-three years of published existence.
Its revival seems to be a sign of the times, and of better times, in literature; a breath of spring after a winter of discontent. For we have been going through a prolonged era of intentionally bad art in every form, whether of writing, painting, sculpture, music - what not? And The King in Yellow harks back to a day when polished English was expected of a writer, along with a sense of form, of progress, suspense, and climax.
Even when an artist does his utmost best, he has done none too well and is at least as apt as Homer was to nod. But when he is contemptuous of grammar, structure, grace, he is facing the wrong way, and the farther he flies the farther he is from a desirable goal.
In all periods of the history of all arts there have been three kinds of endeavor; archaic affectations of the very sophisticated "primitive"; grotesque ugliness and shapelessness; and a consecrated effort at beauty, power, and form. The three strata are sometimes mixed together; sometimes one or another has almost a monopoly.
For years now we have been more or less submerged in a rage for slipshod technics, almost exclusively devoted to making beauty ugly and ugliness uglier. In drawing, painting, and sculpture, much of the output resembles that of the nursery or the insane asylum. In music we have had oblique harmony, which means, of course, unbroken discord. Strange magazines and books have tempted both laughter and pity by their extraordinary experiments in language that nobody even pretends to understand.
Since critics have to live on what fresh meat the market affords, they have gone along for the ride, and hailed butchers as masters.
There is always bad English and always form that is either too conspicuous or badly concatenated; but between precocity and perversity, the sincere struggler for vivid expression of emotion has been more or less in disgrace of late.
All schools or art, the Grecian no less than the rest, have gone Gothic at times and made the gargoyle and the wilderness their ideal. But they always swing back to sanity or at least to the divine insanity of the seeker after beauty, even in its most tragic, terrifying, or heart breaking forms.
The writings of Robert William Chambers bracket the interval of bad art for bad art's sake. He began to publish before the disease set in, and he was hailed then as a genius. He continued to persist in his ideals, and so became a byword of critical disfavor. Now after his death, his work of his youth comes back into its own, and I sincerely believe that his name will be regarded with high respect when many of the most touted pets of today, or of yesterday, will be forgotten or derided.
The head and front of Chambers' offense was that he wrote beautiful English about beautiful women and handsome men in beautiful surroundings. All of these have been anathema to the realists, though there are vast numbers of good-looking people and vast stretches of gorgeous scenery; and no end of drama, pathos, and frustration among them. And there is quite as much true realism in describing them as in sticking to homely people in shabbiness and squalor, to whom nothing interesting or too much depressing happens.
I myself love poor, illiterate, and unlucky people; but I do not love poor, illiterate, and unlucky writing. The world would be appallingly the poorer if we threw out all the artists who confined themselves to the rich, and to splendor and charm. We should lose the Watteaus, the Goujons, the Chopins, the Robert Herricks, the Henry Fieldings. I could never see why high art must necessarily ignore high life.
The King in Yellow was published in 1895. The central idea is magnificent. In the story, "The King in Yellow" is a fatal book whose very words are poisonous. Critics hailed the author as a rival of Edgar Allen Poe.
Of course, we are still suffering from the critical school that despises Poe and belittles even Shakespeare. Only this season a New York dramatic critic ridiculed "As You Like It" in words that resemble the contempt Pepys expressed for "Romeo and Juliet."
When The King in Yellow first appeared it was the fashion to rave over it. One read in the reviews such tributes as this:
"The author is a genius without a living equal in his peculiar field. It is a masterpiece. ... I have read many portions several times, captivated by the unapproachable tints of the painting. None but a genius of the highest order could do such work."
Another critic exclaimed: "The short prose tale ... was the art of Edgar Poe; it is the art of Mr. Chambers. ... It is the most notable contribution to literature which has come from an American publisher for many years."
The King in Yellow was Chambers' second book following by only a few months his first novel, In the Quarter, a study of the Bohemian life in Paris that he knew so well; for his first ambition was to be a painter. Born in Brooklyn, he made his preliminary studies at the Art students' League. A classmate of his was the famous master of pen and ink, Charles Dana Gibson. Chambers told me once that, as young students, he and C.D.G. went together to the office of Life to submit their first drawings. The editor accepted the picture by Chambers and rejected Gibson's. Gibson remained in New York and became immensely successful in the field in which he received his first rebuff.
Chambers went to France, studied at the Julien Academy for seven years. After three he had his first painting accepted by the Paris Salon, but he finally decided to chuck his brushes overboard and commence author.
He had, however, learned in France that fine clarity of expression, that sure feeling of form, which make his English so clear, so lithe, and his stories so definitely stories.
Also, he learned the French landscape. After the Battle of the Marne had given that marrow stream immortal fame, he told me once; "I whipped that little river almost from end to end with a fishing rod." It depressed him horribly to picture that banks of that pretty meanderer piled high with dead and its water choked with corpses.
Some of the short stories included in the volume and many of his first novels were concerned with French life and character, and they inspired some of his most charming writings, triumphs of sheer style.
For a period, his interest turned to early American history, and his Cardigan won and holds a high place in historical fiction. He wrote with such smooth flow and such exciting incident that few understood what a scholar he was in research. He was incidentally a keen naturalist with an amazing and perhaps characteristic interest in butterflies.
Many of his fictional characters were butterflies, and I cannot see why a fluttering, sunlit butterfly is not as legitimate and important a subject as a bedbug, a spider, or a toad.
After a cycle of historical; novels. Chambers turned to the chronicling of the contemporary rich and the gaudier people of New York society. Two things alienated his most friendly reviewers and infuriated his rivals: his stories concerned wealthy people and could not therefore be artistic; also, they had enormous success, which completed the insult.
Critics are human in that they tire easily, and nothing wearies them like the persistent success of a writer year after year for years on years.
His highest achievement in the field of American wealth was The Fighting Chance. As a serial it had enormous success in the Saturday Evening Post, and its success as a book was even greater. The demand for it was so huge that the advance printing order was gradually increased until no less than one hundred thousand copies made up the first edition. That is one reason why Bob Chambers' novels are not often found in the collections of the devotees of rare books. Yet, by coincidence, just as I undertook to write this preface, I received a catalogue of the sale of a great library, and found among the items, this:
Chambers, Robert, The King in Yellow. 16 mo., original decorated green cloth, gilt top. First Edition, in the First Binding, with the dust jacket. Rare in this State. An Immaculate Copy.
And now the book comes out in a new form, and it is a joy to read, for the subtle terrors inspired by "The King in Yellow"; for the warm charm and sweetness of other stories in the book, such as the perfectly delicious "Demoiselle d'Ys"; and for the power and charm of other stories.
Bob Chambers was, for all his fame and success, the shyest, simplest author I ever knew. He was modest, lovable, devoted to his beautiful and devoted wife, and he died slowly in heroic patience. He had his ideals and lived up to them. He strove for charm, action, character, and was faithful to beauty. He was a teller of stories, and to tell a good story well is a high and a difficult art. Take away from out literature the works of Robert Chambers and a great and brilliant life would be left without presentation; a swarm of men and women as typical of our time as any other groups, and living our life to the full, would be entirely omitted from the literary parade.
For these reasons and because his work was beautiful, much of it deserves to survive, and will, unless posterity shall be too deeply involved in its own problems to care for ours.
I ENVY those who will read for the first time this ever-young story that I read in my youth. Yet on re-reading it, I find that it has lost none of its original savor or poignancy in its forty-three years of published existence.
Its revival seems to be a sign of the times, and of better times, in literature; a breath of spring after a winter of discontent. For we have been going through a prolonged era of intentionally bad art in every form, whether of writing, painting, sculpture, music - what not? And The King in Yellow harks back to a day when polished English was expected of a writer, along with a sense of form, of progress, suspense, and climax.
Even when an artist does his utmost best, he has done none too well and is at least as apt as Homer was to nod. But when he is contemptuous of grammar, structure, grace, he is facing the wrong way, and the farther he flies the farther he is from a desirable goal.
In all periods of the history of all arts there have been three kinds of endeavor; archaic affectations of the very sophisticated "primitive"; grotesque ugliness and shapelessness; and a consecrated effort at beauty, power, and form. The three strata are sometimes mixed together; sometimes one or another has almost a monopoly.
For years now we have been more or less submerged in a rage for slipshod technics, almost exclusively devoted to making beauty ugly and ugliness uglier. In drawing, painting, and sculpture, much of the output resembles that of the nursery or the insane asylum. In music we have had oblique harmony, which means, of course, unbroken discord. Strange magazines and books have tempted both laughter and pity by their extraordinary experiments in language that nobody even pretends to understand.
Since critics have to live on what fresh meat the market affords, they have gone along for the ride, and hailed butchers as masters.
There is always bad English and always form that is either too conspicuous or badly concatenated; but between precocity and perversity, the sincere struggler for vivid expression of emotion has been more or less in disgrace of late.
All schools or art, the Grecian no less than the rest, have gone Gothic at times and made the gargoyle and the wilderness their ideal. But they always swing back to sanity or at least to the divine insanity of the seeker after beauty, even in its most tragic, terrifying, or heart breaking forms.
The writings of Robert William Chambers bracket the interval of bad art for bad art's sake. He began to publish before the disease set in, and he was hailed then as a genius. He continued to persist in his ideals, and so became a byword of critical disfavor. Now after his death, his work of his youth comes back into its own, and I sincerely believe that his name will be regarded with high respect when many of the most touted pets of today, or of yesterday, will be forgotten or derided.
The head and front of Chambers' offense was that he wrote beautiful English about beautiful women and handsome men in beautiful surroundings. All of these have been anathema to the realists, though there are vast numbers of good-looking people and vast stretches of gorgeous scenery; and no end of drama, pathos, and frustration among them. And there is quite as much true realism in describing them as in sticking to homely people in shabbiness and squalor, to whom nothing interesting or too much depressing happens.
I myself love poor, illiterate, and unlucky people; but I do not love poor, illiterate, and unlucky writing. The world would be appallingly the poorer if we threw out all the artists who confined themselves to the rich, and to splendor and charm. We should lose the Watteaus, the Goujons, the Chopins, the Robert Herricks, the Henry Fieldings. I could never see why high art must necessarily ignore high life.
The King in Yellow was published in 1895. The central idea is magnificent. In the story, "The King in Yellow" is a fatal book whose very words are poisonous. Critics hailed the author as a rival of Edgar Allen Poe.
Of course, we are still suffering from the critical school that despises Poe and belittles even Shakespeare. Only this season a New York dramatic critic ridiculed "As You Like It" in words that resemble the contempt Pepys expressed for "Romeo and Juliet."
When The King in Yellow first appeared it was the fashion to rave over it. One read in the reviews such tributes as this:
"The author is a genius without a living equal in his peculiar field. It is a masterpiece. ... I have read many portions several times, captivated by the unapproachable tints of the painting. None but a genius of the highest order could do such work."
Another critic exclaimed: "The short prose tale ... was the art of Edgar Poe; it is the art of Mr. Chambers. ... It is the most notable contribution to literature which has come from an American publisher for many years."
The King in Yellow was Chambers' second book following by only a few months his first novel, In the Quarter, a study of the Bohemian life in Paris that he knew so well; for his first ambition was to be a painter. Born in Brooklyn, he made his preliminary studies at the Art students' League. A classmate of his was the famous master of pen and ink, Charles Dana Gibson. Chambers told me once that, as young students, he and C.D.G. went together to the office of Life to submit their first drawings. The editor accepted the picture by Chambers and rejected Gibson's. Gibson remained in New York and became immensely successful in the field in which he received his first rebuff.
Chambers went to France, studied at the Julien Academy for seven years. After three he had his first painting accepted by the Paris Salon, but he finally decided to chuck his brushes overboard and commence author.
He had, however, learned in France that fine clarity of expression, that sure feeling of form, which make his English so clear, so lithe, and his stories so definitely stories.
Also, he learned the French landscape. After the Battle of the Marne had given that marrow stream immortal fame, he told me once; "I whipped that little river almost from end to end with a fishing rod." It depressed him horribly to picture that banks of that pretty meanderer piled high with dead and its water choked with corpses.
Some of the short stories included in the volume and many of his first novels were concerned with French life and character, and they inspired some of his most charming writings, triumphs of sheer style.
For a period, his interest turned to early American history, and his Cardigan won and holds a high place in historical fiction. He wrote with such smooth flow and such exciting incident that few understood what a scholar he was in research. He was incidentally a keen naturalist with an amazing and perhaps characteristic interest in butterflies.
Many of his fictional characters were butterflies, and I cannot see why a fluttering, sunlit butterfly is not as legitimate and important a subject as a bedbug, a spider, or a toad.
After a cycle of historical; novels. Chambers turned to the chronicling of the contemporary rich and the gaudier people of New York society. Two things alienated his most friendly reviewers and infuriated his rivals: his stories concerned wealthy people and could not therefore be artistic; also, they had enormous success, which completed the insult.
Critics are human in that they tire easily, and nothing wearies them like the persistent success of a writer year after year for years on years.
His highest achievement in the field of American wealth was The Fighting Chance. As a serial it had enormous success in the Saturday Evening Post, and its success as a book was even greater. The demand for it was so huge that the advance printing order was gradually increased until no less than one hundred thousand copies made up the first edition. That is one reason why Bob Chambers' novels are not often found in the collections of the devotees of rare books. Yet, by coincidence, just as I undertook to write this preface, I received a catalogue of the sale of a great library, and found among the items, this:
Chambers, Robert, The King in Yellow. 16 mo., original decorated green cloth, gilt top. First Edition, in the First Binding, with the dust jacket. Rare in this State. An Immaculate Copy.
And now the book comes out in a new form, and it is a joy to read, for the subtle terrors inspired by "The King in Yellow"; for the warm charm and sweetness of other stories in the book, such as the perfectly delicious "Demoiselle d'Ys"; and for the power and charm of other stories.
Bob Chambers was, for all his fame and success, the shyest, simplest author I ever knew. He was modest, lovable, devoted to his beautiful and devoted wife, and he died slowly in heroic patience. He had his ideals and lived up to them. He strove for charm, action, character, and was faithful to beauty. He was a teller of stories, and to tell a good story well is a high and a difficult art. Take away from out literature the works of Robert Chambers and a great and brilliant life would be left without presentation; a swarm of men and women as typical of our time as any other groups, and living our life to the full, would be entirely omitted from the literary parade.
For these reasons and because his work was beautiful, much of it deserves to survive, and will, unless posterity shall be too deeply involved in its own problems to care for ours.
Satre Press Information
The King in Yellowby Robert W. Chambers
Price: $18.95In stock, same day shipping directly from the publisher.Free Shipping.
Trade Paperback212 pagesSattre PressISBN 0-9718305-0-9Size: 6x9"
A reprint of the 1895 classic containing all of the original stories. Newly typeset and with a new introduction.
Price: $18.95In stock, same day shipping directly from the publisher.Free Shipping.
Trade Paperback212 pagesSattre PressISBN 0-9718305-0-9Size: 6x9"
A reprint of the 1895 classic containing all of the original stories. Newly typeset and with a new introduction.
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Special Edition
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From the Introduction
To the extent that Robert W. Chambers (1865--1933) is remembered at all today, it is for The King in Yellow, an odd collection of supernatural and ``French'' stories first published in 1895. It was followed by a few science-fiction comedies which are still reprinted from time to time, and then by dozens of popular historical romances and ``society'' novels, now long out of print and apparently unlamented. That he was originally an artist and friend of the famous Charles Dana Gibson is now mostly forgotten; knowing this, the reader can guess that Chambers was an art student in the Latin Quarter and attended the schools mentioned in his stories.
For his weird tales, Chambers took some names from Ambrose Bierce, and his own stories were later mined by H. P. Lovecraft and the pulp magazine writers of his circle. Such usage has kept The King in Yellow, if not alive, then at least in the awareness of readers of the fantasy and horror genre. For all I know, the references have now spread to board games, rock music albums and cult television programs.
Like other readers of such literature, when I was young I enjoyed the supernatural stories in the first half of the book, but tended to skip over the tales of the artists' life in Paris in the second half. Indeed, several editions have omitted these stories entirely, substituting others more likely to appeal to the fantasy reader. However, as I grow older, the French stories appeal to me more and more. I am grateful for even a small glimpse into the author's youth in another time and place, now long gone. As an aside: the characters of these stories first appeared in Chambers' first book, In the Quarter, which appeared in 1894.
What is The King in Yellow about? (``There are so many things which are impossible to explain''). The title refers to a book within our book, actually to a play in two acts, and to a supernatural character within that play who we suspect also exists outside of it. We know very little of the contents of the play, but discover that it drives the reader insane and damns his soul. Yet the book is said to be beautiful, expressing the ``supreme note of art.'' As such, the device is a perfect one for the Decadent time in which it was created, suggesting the flowers of evil, the admixture of life and decay, beauty and malevolence.
As we move into the French stories, the supernatural elements fade away. We still have the themes of the danger of too much knowledge, and of innocence threatened and protected. The stories are loosely connected but not presented in any sort of chronological order. In fact, the first, ``The Repairer of Reputations,'' is set in the future of 1920, and one of the later stories, ``The Street of the First Shell'' is a realistic account of the siege of Paris in 1870. Did Chambers have a reason for arranging the book in this way? Perhaps he wanted to introduce some distance from the locus of horror, showing how evil ripples out from a center, never entirely vanishing, but diminishing and being conquered by love. As dark as his vision may be, hope and love are never absent.
A reader is allowed his favorites. I have two: ``The Mask'' features a striking combination of hope and the intimation of transcendence, set against the sinister background of Chambers' mythology. It is the most Catholic of his stories, a strain that runs through many of them. And, at six pages, ``The Street of the Four Winds'' is one of the most perfect short stories I know.
William McClain
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