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Horizons, v. 6, issue 1, whole no. 20, September 1944
Page 8
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Type:____ Class: Code: Size: (June, 1902 ) 274 octavo pages. Publishers: Harper & Brothers, New York and London Author: Chambers, Robert W. Pseudonym: Title: "King in Yellow" Subtitle: Editions: "Copyright, 1895, by P. Tennyson Neely; Copyright, 1902, by Robert W. Chambers Published June, 1902," Appeared in magazine form: Further information: Review published in Horizons, vol. 6. no. 1, September, 1944. page 8. H. Warner, Jr. "The King in Yellow" contains nine stories, or more strictly speaking eight short stories and a small collection of "fragments", not all of them fantasy, most of them loosely bound together by cross-references and a mention of an unspeakably terrible play, ^The King in Yellow", which holds the same position in these stories as the "Necronomicon" in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Two of the stories have the play as their central theme; in others it is only briefly mentioned or does not appear at all. Occasionally there is a quotation, always from the less horrible first act of the drama: "Stranger: I wear no mask. Camilla (terrified, aside to Cassilda). No mask? No mask!" First, and perhaps most fantastic of the tales, is "The Repairer of Reputations", is set two decades ahead of the writing time of the Book, and presumably the story of a madman who, the reader uneasily senses at the very end, might possibly be sane. In it, the narrator believes himself coming king of "The Yellow Sign, which no human being dared disregard. The city, the State, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask." Finest of the nine stories, however, is the next--"The Mask", full of the Parisian artist life which Chambers excelled in describing. "The Yellow Sign," on the other hand, is a slightly conventional horror story, distinguished by the influence of "The King of Yellow" upon the victim. "The Demoiselle D'Ye" entirely free from the terrible play, is out-and-out fantasy of a man transported into the fourteenth century. "The Prophet's Paradise" consist of eight, brief word-poems, sometimes clearly and beautifully symbolic, occasionally utterly nightmarish in quality and enigma. The remaining four stories are unconnected with the first half of the book, and lacking in fantasy. Titles, for the sake of completeness and reference, are: "The Street of the Four Winds-," "The Street of the First Street of Our Lady of the Fields", and "Rue Barree". Although magnified absurdly beyond its real worth through overenthusiastic fanzine reviews, and not nearly so rare a book as prices paid would indicate, "The King in Yellow" is important both as fantasy itself, and for its influence on a whole generation of authors of fantasy in general, and the Lovecraft mythos in particular. Chambers' style is scrupulously polished, almost always restrained and lacking in lavish adjectival strokes, relying more upon innuendo and hints to the reader on the terrible "King in Yellow". The four fantasies and "The Prophets' Paradise", it should be noted, are related in the first person, while the other more mundane stories are told in the impersonal third person. —Harry Warner, Jr. Personal addenda:
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Type:____ Class: Code: Size: (June, 1902 ) 274 octavo pages. Publishers: Harper & Brothers, New York and London Author: Chambers, Robert W. Pseudonym: Title: "King in Yellow" Subtitle: Editions: "Copyright, 1895, by P. Tennyson Neely; Copyright, 1902, by Robert W. Chambers Published June, 1902," Appeared in magazine form: Further information: Review published in Horizons, vol. 6. no. 1, September, 1944. page 8. H. Warner, Jr. "The King in Yellow" contains nine stories, or more strictly speaking eight short stories and a small collection of "fragments", not all of them fantasy, most of them loosely bound together by cross-references and a mention of an unspeakably terrible play, ^The King in Yellow", which holds the same position in these stories as the "Necronomicon" in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Two of the stories have the play as their central theme; in others it is only briefly mentioned or does not appear at all. Occasionally there is a quotation, always from the less horrible first act of the drama: "Stranger: I wear no mask. Camilla (terrified, aside to Cassilda). No mask? No mask!" First, and perhaps most fantastic of the tales, is "The Repairer of Reputations", is set two decades ahead of the writing time of the Book, and presumably the story of a madman who, the reader uneasily senses at the very end, might possibly be sane. In it, the narrator believes himself coming king of "The Yellow Sign, which no human being dared disregard. The city, the State, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask." Finest of the nine stories, however, is the next--"The Mask", full of the Parisian artist life which Chambers excelled in describing. "The Yellow Sign," on the other hand, is a slightly conventional horror story, distinguished by the influence of "The King of Yellow" upon the victim. "The Demoiselle D'Ye" entirely free from the terrible play, is out-and-out fantasy of a man transported into the fourteenth century. "The Prophet's Paradise" consist of eight, brief word-poems, sometimes clearly and beautifully symbolic, occasionally utterly nightmarish in quality and enigma. The remaining four stories are unconnected with the first half of the book, and lacking in fantasy. Titles, for the sake of completeness and reference, are: "The Street of the Four Winds-," "The Street of the First Street of Our Lady of the Fields", and "Rue Barree". Although magnified absurdly beyond its real worth through overenthusiastic fanzine reviews, and not nearly so rare a book as prices paid would indicate, "The King in Yellow" is important both as fantasy itself, and for its influence on a whole generation of authors of fantasy in general, and the Lovecraft mythos in particular. Chambers' style is scrupulously polished, almost always restrained and lacking in lavish adjectival strokes, relying more upon innuendo and hints to the reader on the terrible "King in Yellow". The four fantasies and "The Prophets' Paradise", it should be noted, are related in the first person, while the other more mundane stories are told in the impersonal third person. —Harry Warner, Jr. Personal addenda:
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