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Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu books
The Yellow Sign and Other Stories
This massive collection brings together the entire body of Robert W. Chambers' weird fiction works including material unprinted since the 1890's. Chambers is a landmark author in the field of horror literature because of his King in Yellow collection. That book represents but a small portion of his weird fiction work, and these stories are intimately connected with the Cthulhu Mythos -- introducing Hali, Carcosa, and Hastur.Short stories from The King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, The Mystery of Choice, The Tracer of Lost Persons, The Tree of Heaven, and two complete books, In Search of the Unknown and Police!!!
This book contains all the immortal tales of Robert W. Chambers, including "The Repairer of Reputations," "The Yellow Sign," and "The Mask." These titles are often found in survey anthologies. In addition to the six stories reprinted from The King in Yellow (1895), this book also offers more than two dozen other stories and episodes, about 650 pages in all. These narratives rarely have appeared in print. Some have not been published in nearly a century.
A Chambers novel, The Slayer of Souls (1920), is not included in this short story collection.
This book contains all the immortal tales of Robert W. Chambers, including "The Repairer of Reputations," "The Yellow Sign," and "The Mask." These titles are often found in survey anthologies. In addition to the six stories reprinted from The King in Yellow (1895), this book also offers more than two dozen other stories and episodes, about 650 pages in all. These narratives rarely have appeared in print. Some have not been published in nearly a century.
A Chambers novel, The Slayer of Souls (1920), is not included in this short story collection.
668 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2000
21 people are currently reading
1316 people want to read
About the author
Robert W. Chambers
798 books580 followersRobert William Chambers was an American artist and writer.
Chambers was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute,and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter (written in 1887 in Munich). His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of weird short stories, connected by the theme of the fictitious drama The King in Yellow, which drives those who read it insane.
Chambers returned to the weird genre in his later short story collections The Maker of Moons and The Tree of Heaven, but neither earned him such success as The King in Yellow.
Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers was one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status. Many of his works were also serialized in magazines.
After 1924 he devoted himself solely to writing historical fiction.
Chambers for several years made Broadalbin his summer home. Some of his novels touch upon colonial life in Broadalbin and Johnstown.
On July 12, 1898, he married Elsa Vaughn Moller (1882-1939). They had a son, Robert Edward Stuart Chambers (later calling himself Robert Husted Chambers) who also gained some fame as an author.
Chambers died at his home in the village of Broadalbin, New York, on December 16th 1933.
Chambers was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute,and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter (written in 1887 in Munich). His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of weird short stories, connected by the theme of the fictitious drama The King in Yellow, which drives those who read it insane.
Chambers returned to the weird genre in his later short story collections The Maker of Moons and The Tree of Heaven, but neither earned him such success as The King in Yellow.
Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers was one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status. Many of his works were also serialized in magazines.
After 1924 he devoted himself solely to writing historical fiction.
Chambers for several years made Broadalbin his summer home. Some of his novels touch upon colonial life in Broadalbin and Johnstown.
On July 12, 1898, he married Elsa Vaughn Moller (1882-1939). They had a son, Robert Edward Stuart Chambers (later calling himself Robert Husted Chambers) who also gained some fame as an author.
Chambers died at his home in the village of Broadalbin, New York, on December 16th 1933.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
November 16, 2015
To me, there has always been something lacking in Lovecraft, something which makes it difficult for me to connect with his stories directly, personally. In reading Chambers, I found a distinct human element which Lovecraft cannot seem to approach.
Lovecraft's alien horror is often a bit too alien--even his 'everyday' protagonists tend to be rather odd, even unsympathetic. But then Lovecraft was a lifelong loner and shut-in, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that his tales owe less to the foibles of humanity than to his dislike of seafood: the most influential culinary preference in all of literature.
Chamber's embrace of the romantic lends his tales a core of emotional sentiment which ties us to the world. It also gives his stories depth, inviting us to compare and contrast the highs and lows of human experience. We are not always bombarded with the strange and horrifying, instead, we are allowed to catch our breath, to calm down, even if the next revelation of horror will only rip it away again. Action is defined by the lulls that pace it, and the might of the storm seems greater in the apprehension of a calm.
But Chamber's careless romantic indulgences were also his downfall, leading to an interminable series of best-selling parlor dramas which are, today, entirely forgotten. Many fans of horror lamented that he left the genre behind, since the few outings collected here show such promise.
Our editor, notable mythos academic S.T. Joshi, compiles nearly all of Chamber's weird tales, many of which have not seen print in a century. His introduction is well-considered and informative, praising Chambers' strengths and sighing at his degradation. The cover illustration is all wrong, but otherwise, the edition is well-received.
Though some of this collection begin to show the signs of Chambers' failings (his repetitious themes, his increased reliance on light humor) there are also stories which stand easily on their own in the American horror canon alongside Poe, Lovecraft, and sometimes approaching Bierce.
Chambers takes inspiration from many writers in his stories, including H. Rider Haggard and Poe, but he was clearly touched by Bierce, whose careful mastery of prose and style ignited the genre far more than Poe's thesaurus. Chambers' prose is respectable, and his dialogue vivacious, especially in comparison to Lovecraft's preference for omniscient narration.
There is even humor and wit in Chambers, and some of it quite good. It leans toward farce in some occasions (mostly his collected stories of various adventures into cryptozoology) but in other instances lends a vital human touch to tales of incomprehensible terror. If we are to believe Lovecraft, Chambers took writing too lightly, being "equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them"; if we are to believe Illuminatus! , Chambers retreated into light romance to escape a dark horror which threatened to consume him.
Much breath has been spent on wishing that he had written more books to match with his better stories, and fewer of the other kind, but this lamentation is rather silly, to me. Chambers wrote a dozen tales fit for inclusion in any collection of fine horror, which is a dozen more than all of Lovecraft's self-appointed heirs produced, combined.
Lovecraft's alien horror is often a bit too alien--even his 'everyday' protagonists tend to be rather odd, even unsympathetic. But then Lovecraft was a lifelong loner and shut-in, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that his tales owe less to the foibles of humanity than to his dislike of seafood: the most influential culinary preference in all of literature.
Chamber's embrace of the romantic lends his tales a core of emotional sentiment which ties us to the world. It also gives his stories depth, inviting us to compare and contrast the highs and lows of human experience. We are not always bombarded with the strange and horrifying, instead, we are allowed to catch our breath, to calm down, even if the next revelation of horror will only rip it away again. Action is defined by the lulls that pace it, and the might of the storm seems greater in the apprehension of a calm.
But Chamber's careless romantic indulgences were also his downfall, leading to an interminable series of best-selling parlor dramas which are, today, entirely forgotten. Many fans of horror lamented that he left the genre behind, since the few outings collected here show such promise.
Our editor, notable mythos academic S.T. Joshi, compiles nearly all of Chamber's weird tales, many of which have not seen print in a century. His introduction is well-considered and informative, praising Chambers' strengths and sighing at his degradation. The cover illustration is all wrong, but otherwise, the edition is well-received.
Though some of this collection begin to show the signs of Chambers' failings (his repetitious themes, his increased reliance on light humor) there are also stories which stand easily on their own in the American horror canon alongside Poe, Lovecraft, and sometimes approaching Bierce.
Chambers takes inspiration from many writers in his stories, including H. Rider Haggard and Poe, but he was clearly touched by Bierce, whose careful mastery of prose and style ignited the genre far more than Poe's thesaurus. Chambers' prose is respectable, and his dialogue vivacious, especially in comparison to Lovecraft's preference for omniscient narration.
There is even humor and wit in Chambers, and some of it quite good. It leans toward farce in some occasions (mostly his collected stories of various adventures into cryptozoology) but in other instances lends a vital human touch to tales of incomprehensible terror. If we are to believe Lovecraft, Chambers took writing too lightly, being "equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them"; if we are to believe Illuminatus! , Chambers retreated into light romance to escape a dark horror which threatened to consume him.
Much breath has been spent on wishing that he had written more books to match with his better stories, and fewer of the other kind, but this lamentation is rather silly, to me. Chambers wrote a dozen tales fit for inclusion in any collection of fine horror, which is a dozen more than all of Lovecraft's self-appointed heirs produced, combined.
September 30, 2013
3.75 stars, rounded up to a 4.
definitely a keeper!
The other night I picked up Joseph Pulver's A Season in Carcosa, read the intro and then realized I'd never read The King In Yellow, so I probably needed to hold off for a bit. When I finished The Yellow Sign and Other Stories, I realized that Chambers had borrowed Carcosa from Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" so I guess I have to go grab The Heritage of Hastur to read that one. Lucky for me, I own a LOT of Chaosium volumes.
This collection is a mixed bag of tales ranging from the best of the weird to eerie to fun and then downright silly. The first group of stories in this book come from Chambers' The King in Yellow, featuring "The Repairer of Reputations," "The Mask," "In the Court of the Dragon" "The Yellow Sign" "The Demoiselle d'Ys" and "The Prophet's Paradise." For my money, these are the best and the most intensely weird stories in the entire book, and as weird goes, they just don't get better. In fact, these are some of the best weird stories I've ever read, period. The next stories, "The Maker of Moons" and "A Pleasant Evening," come from The Maker of Moons, two more excellent pieces with perhaps a bit less weirdish intensity than the King in Yellow selections, but are still guaranteed to induce a sense of dread. "The Maker of Moons" wins my vote in this section, although the supernatural tones of "A Pleasant Evening" had a shocker of an ending that really grabbed me. The third group of stories is The Mystery of Choice; one of the best supernatural stories I've ever read is found here in "The Messenger." I also loved the Bretonne setting and the local legends and customs that have much to do with the stories in this section. In Search of the Unknown features stories focusing on the exploits of a zoologist who is sent here and there to verify discoveries of strange creatures. While these tales are highly entertaining, they fall less into the weird zone and more into the realm of strange adventure. Skipping ahead, the same is true for Police!!!, although with the exception of "The Third Eye," these little episodes have more of a cheesy-slash-silly edge, especially in "The Immortal," featuring a bunch of cave-dwelling women in the Florida Everglades. The chapters excerpted from The Tracer of Lost Persons left me wanting more, especially if the rest of that particular book is as good is what's here. Egyptian hieroglyphics, a hidden chamber and a body turned to dust all had my complete attention for the duration. Finally, The Tree of Heaven is a decent mix of stories that run a good spectrum ranging from strange to eerie, but not anywhere near the quality of The King in Yellow or The Maker of Moons.
While all of these collected tales may not suit everyone, as is generally the case with an anthology, the book is well worth reading if for nothing else, the chapters from the first three titles The King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, and The Mystery of Choice. Even the cheesy stories might produce a laugh now and then, but definitely, if you're at all into weird fiction and you haven't read Chambers' work yet, you really don't want to miss this book. Now I can go read A Season in Carcosa and not feel stupid or that I missed anything!
definitely a keeper!
The other night I picked up Joseph Pulver's A Season in Carcosa, read the intro and then realized I'd never read The King In Yellow, so I probably needed to hold off for a bit. When I finished The Yellow Sign and Other Stories, I realized that Chambers had borrowed Carcosa from Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" so I guess I have to go grab The Heritage of Hastur to read that one. Lucky for me, I own a LOT of Chaosium volumes.
This collection is a mixed bag of tales ranging from the best of the weird to eerie to fun and then downright silly. The first group of stories in this book come from Chambers' The King in Yellow, featuring "The Repairer of Reputations," "The Mask," "In the Court of the Dragon" "The Yellow Sign" "The Demoiselle d'Ys" and "The Prophet's Paradise." For my money, these are the best and the most intensely weird stories in the entire book, and as weird goes, they just don't get better. In fact, these are some of the best weird stories I've ever read, period. The next stories, "The Maker of Moons" and "A Pleasant Evening," come from The Maker of Moons, two more excellent pieces with perhaps a bit less weirdish intensity than the King in Yellow selections, but are still guaranteed to induce a sense of dread. "The Maker of Moons" wins my vote in this section, although the supernatural tones of "A Pleasant Evening" had a shocker of an ending that really grabbed me. The third group of stories is The Mystery of Choice; one of the best supernatural stories I've ever read is found here in "The Messenger." I also loved the Bretonne setting and the local legends and customs that have much to do with the stories in this section. In Search of the Unknown features stories focusing on the exploits of a zoologist who is sent here and there to verify discoveries of strange creatures. While these tales are highly entertaining, they fall less into the weird zone and more into the realm of strange adventure. Skipping ahead, the same is true for Police!!!, although with the exception of "The Third Eye," these little episodes have more of a cheesy-slash-silly edge, especially in "The Immortal," featuring a bunch of cave-dwelling women in the Florida Everglades. The chapters excerpted from The Tracer of Lost Persons left me wanting more, especially if the rest of that particular book is as good is what's here. Egyptian hieroglyphics, a hidden chamber and a body turned to dust all had my complete attention for the duration. Finally, The Tree of Heaven is a decent mix of stories that run a good spectrum ranging from strange to eerie, but not anywhere near the quality of The King in Yellow or The Maker of Moons.
While all of these collected tales may not suit everyone, as is generally the case with an anthology, the book is well worth reading if for nothing else, the chapters from the first three titles The King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, and The Mystery of Choice. Even the cheesy stories might produce a laugh now and then, but definitely, if you're at all into weird fiction and you haven't read Chambers' work yet, you really don't want to miss this book. Now I can go read A Season in Carcosa and not feel stupid or that I missed anything!
April 12, 2021
As a notice, for the time being the rating is only for the selections from The King in Yellow. Of the 90 pages and 6 stories herein from that collection, most were interesting and several were indeed related to the apparently sparse King in Yellow mythos. Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, and The Yellow Sign most obviously and definitely, In the Court of the Dragon to a degree as well. The last two, The Demoiselle D'Ys and The Prophets' Paradise, not so much that I can tell. The Repairer, The Mask, and The Yellow Sign were all quite interesting, as was Demoiselle. Glad to have read these, but for the time being, this is where I'm going to stop with my Chambers exploration. Just wanted to get the King in Yellow stories under my belt.
March 22, 2010
Promises the entire wierd fiction of Chambers, and doesn't disappoint. It's important to remember that Chambers isn't a Lovecraftian or a Mythos writer. In his introduction, Joshi braces us for an onslaught of syrupy, repetitive adventure/romance, and thus prepared, it's really enjoyable. I made it almost the entire way through before deciding I'd had enough - like a too-rich dessert, you can't complain once you've had your fill.
October 14, 2022
As a big fan of Lovecraft, I was really interested in checking out some of Robert W. Chambers’s work. From what I’ve heard, he was a big influence on Lovecraft, to the point that Lovecraft even included elements of Chambers’s work in his own stories. Unfortunately, though, this one didn’t really do it for me.
On the positive side, there were a couple of short stories in here that I did really like. In the Court of the Dragon was probably my favorite, and I also enjoyed The Mask and The Yellow Sign. All three of these were pretty interesting stories and I enjoyed them quite a lot.
On the other hand, I found pretty much none of the other stories all that interesting. I think one reason for this is that several of them, roughly half, aren’t even horror stories. And that in itself isn’t really a bad thing; but considering that I went into this collection expecting horror, and also got this volume in a boxed set of Lovecraftian horror books, I expected it to be much heavier on the horror than it was. Many of stories in here are more along the lines of historical fiction or just non-horror fiction in general, which is fine, but it’s not what I wanted from this collection. Even with that aside, though, a lot of the stuff in here didn’t grab me. No particular reason why, I think; sometimes stories just don’t appeal to you.
Overall I was a bit disappointed by this collection. I’m sure that it would probably be more engaging for those who are interested in these sorts of stories, and more well-versed in classic fiction than I am. But as it is, aside from a couple stories, this was a dud for me.
Rating: 4/10
On the positive side, there were a couple of short stories in here that I did really like. In the Court of the Dragon was probably my favorite, and I also enjoyed The Mask and The Yellow Sign. All three of these were pretty interesting stories and I enjoyed them quite a lot.
On the other hand, I found pretty much none of the other stories all that interesting. I think one reason for this is that several of them, roughly half, aren’t even horror stories. And that in itself isn’t really a bad thing; but considering that I went into this collection expecting horror, and also got this volume in a boxed set of Lovecraftian horror books, I expected it to be much heavier on the horror than it was. Many of stories in here are more along the lines of historical fiction or just non-horror fiction in general, which is fine, but it’s not what I wanted from this collection. Even with that aside, though, a lot of the stuff in here didn’t grab me. No particular reason why, I think; sometimes stories just don’t appeal to you.
Overall I was a bit disappointed by this collection. I’m sure that it would probably be more engaging for those who are interested in these sorts of stories, and more well-versed in classic fiction than I am. But as it is, aside from a couple stories, this was a dud for me.
Rating: 4/10
August 6, 2014
This book is a slog. Chambers had moments of transcending beauty with his weird fiction, such as the creation of The King In Yellow. Then he writes a bunch of romantic stuff that is sooooooo hard to read. After I got through The King In Yellow and The Mystery Of Choice portions, it took me forever to finish the book. The good portions are worth the slog, but the slog is there. Reader be warned.
January 3, 2017
With the Yellow Sign alone I was more than prepared to give this 5 stars but the rest of this book with the exception of two or three other stories are utter CRAP!
The cave girl story is not amusing. "Lets rope in a professor and tell him they are cave girls." Little does he know they are really actresses.
But we shall let it pass as professor Smith continually states... AHEM! inbetween small hands, blue eyes, beautiful woman, small waist, etc.
The cave girl story is not amusing. "Lets rope in a professor and tell him they are cave girls." Little does he know they are really actresses.
But we shall let it pass as professor Smith continually states... AHEM! inbetween small hands, blue eyes, beautiful woman, small waist, etc.
November 11, 2024
The ancient city of Carcosa first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa." Thanks to the Cthulhu Mythos, however, most horror fans know of it as the setting for an imaginary play called The King in Yellow, which drives its readers mad and is connected somehow to a supernatural entity of the same name. There is also a symbol known as the "Yellow Sign," which leaves the viewer susceptible to some sort of mind control. According to the works of H.P. Lovecraft's successor August Derleth, the actual performance of The King in Yellow is a summoning ritual for the Great Old One Hastur.
Lovecraft and Derleth may have given it a prominent place in their fictional universe, but The King in Yellow is actually the invention of Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933) and the title of a book of his short stories. Since becoming a Lovecraft, fan I was inspired to purchase a copy of The Yellow Sign and Other Stories: The Complete Weird Tales of Robert W. Chambers from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu Fiction line. According to editor S.T. Joshi's introduction, Chambers was a brilliant writer but his extensive oeuvre consists largely of sentimental, formulaic romances published for a quick buck. In fact, Lovecraft's initial opinion of Chambers, after discovering him in 1927, was that he "is like Robert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans - equipped with the right brains and education, but wholly out of the habit of using them." Having nearly finished this selection of his horror and fantasy works, I come away with the impression that Chambers may have written "a plethora of trash appalling in its scope" (as Joshi says, Lovecraftingly) but he was also capable of much, much more.
In both The King in Yellow and elsewhere, Robert Chambers seems to draw from the contemporary movement of Symbolism in art and literature, which emphasized spirituality, obscure and intensely personal allusions, and the use of metaphor over direct communication. (This eventually evolved into Surrealism.) With that in mind, I wonder how much of The King in Yellow stories are meant to be read as straightforward horror narratives. "The Demoiselle d'Ys" and "The Prophets' Paradise" appear to entirely unrelated to the rest of the book. The former is a romantic tale of a man who has either traveled back to medieval France and fallen in love or dreamed the whole thing after he fell asleep in the wilds of Breton's moorlands. The only link there is one of the demoiselle's servants being named Hastur, whom "The Yellow Sign" story also mentions in connection with the The King in Yellow play.
"The Prophets' Paradise" is even more mysterious, consisting entirely of prose poems. "The Green Room" likely recalls the Pallid Mask but the other stories are just ambiguous. Overall, The King in Yellow suggests an intuitive association left to the individual reader to discern. If that is the case, then Chambers may also be asking us to take dream-perception into consideration, whether in the form of delusion or hallucination (particularly in "The Repairer of Reputations," which could be linked to "The Demoiselle d'Ys" as another fantasy taken for material reality) or as another way to understand and engage the events of our lives.
This proto-Surreal, otherworldly quality is reinforced by Chambers's skillful evocation of atmosphere. The stories of The King in Yellow unfold with the languid, decadent air of opulent mansions, Parisian antiquity, and the seclusion and creative freedom of the artist's studio. With the exception of the comical "In Search of the Unknown" series, the majority of the stories collected in this volume are resplendent with similarly rich, sensuous images of art, nature, and beauty. It is Art Nouveau in literary form, with its signature curves and organic forms and holistic emphasis on the pervasiveness of art in everyday living. Combined with the speculative aspect of Chambers's fiction, the result, at its very best, is a haunting, mystical piece like "The Mystery of Choice: The White-Shadow," about a young man laying in a coma and dreaming of an idyllic life in the French countryside, all the while knowing that this bliss will soon draw to an end.
Unfortunately, S.T. Joshi claims that the influence of Robert W. Chambers on ensuing generations of writers does not seem to extend beyond a borrowing of names. Lovecraft's cosmic outlook, Joshi argues, and not to mention his interest in dreams and use of the Brown Note concept (with the Necronomicon), were already well-established before he read Chambers in 1927. Indeed, Lovecraft's reliance on overheated prose, mind-bending monsters, and hints of sanity-shattering horror is far removed from the dark elegance that infuses Chambers's best speculative works. The King in Yellow stories are still of quite worthwhile for any Lovecraft fan intrigued by the allusions made to Hastur and the Yellow Sign in "The Whisperer in Darkness" and Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." But Chambers's appeal goes well beyond a single niche. While scholarship on Chambers may be frustrated by his mountains of maudlin madness, I believe this Chaosium edition will engage anyone looking for something wonderful and unusual and in need of a wider readership. Strongly recommended.
(It should be noted that, unlike H.P. Lovecraft, Robert W. Chambers actually includes female characters! Many of them! Alas, that doesn't mean he's particularly good at it. For all his talent elsewhere, every single last woman in every single last Chambers story has the exact same sweet, ethereal personality that contrasts jarringly with the diversity of the male casts. In other words, women are like decorative pieces and objets d'art, of which Nouveau was very fond. Basically, they're symbols of beauty, which does not good characterization make.)
Original Review
Lovecraft and Derleth may have given it a prominent place in their fictional universe, but The King in Yellow is actually the invention of Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933) and the title of a book of his short stories. Since becoming a Lovecraft, fan I was inspired to purchase a copy of The Yellow Sign and Other Stories: The Complete Weird Tales of Robert W. Chambers from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu Fiction line. According to editor S.T. Joshi's introduction, Chambers was a brilliant writer but his extensive oeuvre consists largely of sentimental, formulaic romances published for a quick buck. In fact, Lovecraft's initial opinion of Chambers, after discovering him in 1927, was that he "is like Robert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans - equipped with the right brains and education, but wholly out of the habit of using them." Having nearly finished this selection of his horror and fantasy works, I come away with the impression that Chambers may have written "a plethora of trash appalling in its scope" (as Joshi says, Lovecraftingly) but he was also capable of much, much more.
In both The King in Yellow and elsewhere, Robert Chambers seems to draw from the contemporary movement of Symbolism in art and literature, which emphasized spirituality, obscure and intensely personal allusions, and the use of metaphor over direct communication. (This eventually evolved into Surrealism.) With that in mind, I wonder how much of The King in Yellow stories are meant to be read as straightforward horror narratives. "The Demoiselle d'Ys" and "The Prophets' Paradise" appear to entirely unrelated to the rest of the book. The former is a romantic tale of a man who has either traveled back to medieval France and fallen in love or dreamed the whole thing after he fell asleep in the wilds of Breton's moorlands. The only link there is one of the demoiselle's servants being named Hastur, whom "The Yellow Sign" story also mentions in connection with the The King in Yellow play.
"The Prophets' Paradise" is even more mysterious, consisting entirely of prose poems. "The Green Room" likely recalls the Pallid Mask but the other stories are just ambiguous. Overall, The King in Yellow suggests an intuitive association left to the individual reader to discern. If that is the case, then Chambers may also be asking us to take dream-perception into consideration, whether in the form of delusion or hallucination (particularly in "The Repairer of Reputations," which could be linked to "The Demoiselle d'Ys" as another fantasy taken for material reality) or as another way to understand and engage the events of our lives.
This proto-Surreal, otherworldly quality is reinforced by Chambers's skillful evocation of atmosphere. The stories of The King in Yellow unfold with the languid, decadent air of opulent mansions, Parisian antiquity, and the seclusion and creative freedom of the artist's studio. With the exception of the comical "In Search of the Unknown" series, the majority of the stories collected in this volume are resplendent with similarly rich, sensuous images of art, nature, and beauty. It is Art Nouveau in literary form, with its signature curves and organic forms and holistic emphasis on the pervasiveness of art in everyday living. Combined with the speculative aspect of Chambers's fiction, the result, at its very best, is a haunting, mystical piece like "The Mystery of Choice: The White-Shadow," about a young man laying in a coma and dreaming of an idyllic life in the French countryside, all the while knowing that this bliss will soon draw to an end.
Unfortunately, S.T. Joshi claims that the influence of Robert W. Chambers on ensuing generations of writers does not seem to extend beyond a borrowing of names. Lovecraft's cosmic outlook, Joshi argues, and not to mention his interest in dreams and use of the Brown Note concept (with the Necronomicon), were already well-established before he read Chambers in 1927. Indeed, Lovecraft's reliance on overheated prose, mind-bending monsters, and hints of sanity-shattering horror is far removed from the dark elegance that infuses Chambers's best speculative works. The King in Yellow stories are still of quite worthwhile for any Lovecraft fan intrigued by the allusions made to Hastur and the Yellow Sign in "The Whisperer in Darkness" and Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." But Chambers's appeal goes well beyond a single niche. While scholarship on Chambers may be frustrated by his mountains of maudlin madness, I believe this Chaosium edition will engage anyone looking for something wonderful and unusual and in need of a wider readership. Strongly recommended.
(It should be noted that, unlike H.P. Lovecraft, Robert W. Chambers actually includes female characters! Many of them! Alas, that doesn't mean he's particularly good at it. For all his talent elsewhere, every single last woman in every single last Chambers story has the exact same sweet, ethereal personality that contrasts jarringly with the diversity of the male casts. In other words, women are like decorative pieces and objets d'art, of which Nouveau was very fond. Basically, they're symbols of beauty, which does not good characterization make.)
Original Review
February 25, 2015
Robert W. Chambers was a successful magazine illustrator who turned to fiction writing. There is no clear reason known for the switch, other than writing came easily for him and paid better than illustration. H.P Lovecraft, although an admirer of Chambers’ fiction, grouped him among those who are “…equipped with the right brains and education, but wholly out of the habit of using them.” He wrote around eighty now forgotten romantic novels, interspersed with exercises in short supernatural fiction that continue to find an audience. (His one fantastic novel was a racist, fascistic rant.)
The King in Yellow, his best work, has recently found a new audience by the opaque references made to it in the TV series True Detectives. People turning to the fiction to find hidden meanings in the series are going to be disappointed. In the stories, The King in Yellow is a play, published but seldom performed and now banned in most countries. Anyone who witnesses or even reads its second act goes insane. Copies of the play or evidence of its influence figure into six otherwise unrelated stories in the original collection. References to The King in True Detectives are not red herrings, but nor do they establish a meaningful relation to Chamber’s fiction.
Chambers deploys an ornate, fin de siècle style that becomes cloying when not describing horrible, grotesque events. (Lovecraft had a valid point.) Along with a “tale told by a madman,” there is a gentle fantasy staged on the English moors and two stories of terror and tragedy set in the bohemian world of artists and models. Chambers, like so many late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers of weird fiction, also fancied himself a poet. He writes verse epigrams for his stories and one story, “The Prophet’s Paradise,” is a kind of prose poem so dreadful I can imagine just how forgettable most of his fiction must be.
I read The King in Yellow stories in a 600-page anthology of the Chamber’s weird fiction. As much fun as these stories are I am not inclined to delve deeper into the Chamber’s cosmos.
The King in Yellow, his best work, has recently found a new audience by the opaque references made to it in the TV series True Detectives. People turning to the fiction to find hidden meanings in the series are going to be disappointed. In the stories, The King in Yellow is a play, published but seldom performed and now banned in most countries. Anyone who witnesses or even reads its second act goes insane. Copies of the play or evidence of its influence figure into six otherwise unrelated stories in the original collection. References to The King in True Detectives are not red herrings, but nor do they establish a meaningful relation to Chamber’s fiction.
Chambers deploys an ornate, fin de siècle style that becomes cloying when not describing horrible, grotesque events. (Lovecraft had a valid point.) Along with a “tale told by a madman,” there is a gentle fantasy staged on the English moors and two stories of terror and tragedy set in the bohemian world of artists and models. Chambers, like so many late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers of weird fiction, also fancied himself a poet. He writes verse epigrams for his stories and one story, “The Prophet’s Paradise,” is a kind of prose poem so dreadful I can imagine just how forgettable most of his fiction must be.
I read The King in Yellow stories in a 600-page anthology of the Chamber’s weird fiction. As much fun as these stories are I am not inclined to delve deeper into the Chamber’s cosmos.
February 14, 2011
Chambers' writing can be dreadful - and I have little doubt that two-thirds of this anthology is unreadable rhodamine rubbish - but The King in Yellow makes it all worth it. Love the stories that make it up, love the entire idea behind it, love the image of Lost Carcosa where there are strange moons and black stars; and, most of all, love the malevolent organist's stare of hatred at the beginning of In the Court of the Dragon, a scene that has stayed with me from the first moment that I read it.
April 1, 2012
I really enjoyed the Maker of Moons and The Demoiselle D'Ys. There were some pretty decent stories in the king in yellow. The reoccurring theme of the main character falling in love with a woman and then loosing her to the other male character in the story got a bit tiring.
April 10, 2021
Weirder than you think, a superb collection of tales...
November 27, 2022
One of the handsome Lovecraft-related anthologies from Chaosium, but if you're looking for Cthulhu you'll be disappointed; Lovecraft was influenced by Chambers' weird style, but there the similarities end. It starts off with THE KING IN YELLOW, an excellent collection of linked stories featuring the titular character, and these are minor classics of weird menace: creepy locations, a cursed book and almost mythical menace.
The reprinted short stories that follow are more varied, mixing between weird historicals, whimsical romances and offbeat stories of exploration. Then we get a complete novel, IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN, an increasingly tiresome and repetitive story of cryptozoological expeditions that end in failed romance.
There are handful of more stories, all of them romance by now with a little bit of whimsy and humour and weirdness thrown in, and then a final novel, POLICE!!! which is the slightest of the lot, similar to UNKNOWN in terms of plot but even more laboured and dated. Very much a product of their time, these stories, but I'd stick with THE KING IN YELLOW and go no further as those are the only ones of interest to the lover of the weird and the horrific.
The reprinted short stories that follow are more varied, mixing between weird historicals, whimsical romances and offbeat stories of exploration. Then we get a complete novel, IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN, an increasingly tiresome and repetitive story of cryptozoological expeditions that end in failed romance.
There are handful of more stories, all of them romance by now with a little bit of whimsy and humour and weirdness thrown in, and then a final novel, POLICE!!! which is the slightest of the lot, similar to UNKNOWN in terms of plot but even more laboured and dated. Very much a product of their time, these stories, but I'd stick with THE KING IN YELLOW and go no further as those are the only ones of interest to the lover of the weird and the horrific.
September 5, 2024
This one was a mixed bag for me. I expected that the entire book would consist of weird/horror stories, but this was not the case. I enjoyed, "The Yellow Sign," "The Harbour-Master" and a few others, but the stories about the art students in Paris didn't really do it for me. Not that they were bad, but they just didn't seem to fit in with the other stuff and made for a very uneven reading experience.
May 19, 2017
This is an odd reading experience. Those coming at it because of an interest in weird fiction will enjoy the front end a lot more than the back; the writing isn't any worse, but the weirdness declines.
July 20, 2017
The King in Yellow set is great and deserve all the praises it got. The other stories in the collection felt a bit lacking, I may have to return to this collection sometime in the future.
March 21, 2024
Thought there would be more yellow signs...
January 19, 2025
While I wouldn't give every story in this collection a 5/5, enough of them hit just right to merit the rating for me.
February 21, 2023
I liked The Yellow Sign and The Harbour-Master, but that's about it. I skipped the non-horror stories in this collection, as 1800s historical fiction isn't my thing, so I won't be commenting on those.
The other horror stories in this collection, repairer of reputations, court of the dragon, the mask and the maker of moons I didn't particularly care for. I found them to be largely boring and, frankly, often confusing to follow. I know these are very old stories and written very differently to how most books are written now, but I didn't find them nearly as good as stories from authors such as Lovecraft, Machen, Poe or even someone like M.R. James.
Can't really recommend this, but Yellow Sign and Harbour-Master are worth checking out.
The other horror stories in this collection, repairer of reputations, court of the dragon, the mask and the maker of moons I didn't particularly care for. I found them to be largely boring and, frankly, often confusing to follow. I know these are very old stories and written very differently to how most books are written now, but I didn't find them nearly as good as stories from authors such as Lovecraft, Machen, Poe or even someone like M.R. James.
Can't really recommend this, but Yellow Sign and Harbour-Master are worth checking out.
January 3, 2023
Weird.
On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed the stories collected in here. The first half especially barely grounds itself in any type of known, concrete reality and it made me feel like I was constantly spiraling down into the earth, losing all sense of time and direction. They confused and unsettled me in all the best of ways. I loved the tragedy of Demosille d'Ys ("To come is easy and takes hours; to go is different - and may take centuries.") and the strange poetry of Prophet's Paradise. I enjoyed the hints of the main character's descent into darker and darker insanity in Repairer of Reputations and the haunting atmosphere laid out in The Mask. Only here, I could not help but dwell on the marble pool. How painful is it to be submerged? The process is described with sudden violence, but Genevieve appears to remain completely unharmed. I think how vague this one was added to my enjoyment of it.
However, while all four of those stories get 4 stars from me, they are offset by Maker of Moons and Harbor-Master especially, as well as having faults uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.
Maker of Moons is another story of alchemy, this time with gold instead of marble, but the story and what it is trying to show is lost under some of the most vile racial slurs and anti-Asian sentiment I have ever read. I will not elaborate on any of them, but it took away from the whole book knowing that it was there. That is not to say there was no racism or misogyny in the rest of the stories - there definitely was - and while it makes it no better, the other books sound like 1800s ignorance, this one sounded like outright hate.
Harbor-Master is Shape of Water as a horror instead of a romance. But it's also 25 pages of comparing animals and dark-skinned poc. Uncomfortable, disgusting, and not in any of the ways a surreal horror should be.
I haven't touched on all the books in this anthology, but I have on the ones that gave me the strongest emotional reactions. As you can see, not always for the better. I don't think all the stories in here should be ignored, especially those directly mentioning the King in Yellow, but know what you're getting in to and know that there is better weird horror out there.
On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed the stories collected in here. The first half especially barely grounds itself in any type of known, concrete reality and it made me feel like I was constantly spiraling down into the earth, losing all sense of time and direction. They confused and unsettled me in all the best of ways. I loved the tragedy of Demosille d'Ys ("To come is easy and takes hours; to go is different - and may take centuries.") and the strange poetry of Prophet's Paradise. I enjoyed the hints of the main character's descent into darker and darker insanity in Repairer of Reputations and the haunting atmosphere laid out in The Mask. Only here, I could not help but dwell on the marble pool. How painful is it to be submerged? The process is described with sudden violence, but Genevieve appears to remain completely unharmed. I think how vague this one was added to my enjoyment of it.
However, while all four of those stories get 4 stars from me, they are offset by Maker of Moons and Harbor-Master especially, as well as having faults uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.
Maker of Moons is another story of alchemy, this time with gold instead of marble, but the story and what it is trying to show is lost under some of the most vile racial slurs and anti-Asian sentiment I have ever read. I will not elaborate on any of them, but it took away from the whole book knowing that it was there. That is not to say there was no racism or misogyny in the rest of the stories - there definitely was - and while it makes it no better, the other books sound like 1800s ignorance, this one sounded like outright hate.
Harbor-Master is Shape of Water as a horror instead of a romance. But it's also 25 pages of comparing animals and dark-skinned poc. Uncomfortable, disgusting, and not in any of the ways a surreal horror should be.
I haven't touched on all the books in this anthology, but I have on the ones that gave me the strongest emotional reactions. As you can see, not always for the better. I don't think all the stories in here should be ignored, especially those directly mentioning the King in Yellow, but know what you're getting in to and know that there is better weird horror out there.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2011
Much as I hate to agree with S. T. Joshi (the editor of this volume, and an unbearably snobbish critic, one of those who give literary critics a bad name), his assessment of Chambers's writing, expressed in Joshi's introduction, is essentially accurate. Chambers's early works and a single later work (represented in this volume by the half dozen stories from _The King in Yellow_, another half dozen from _The Mystery of Choice_, and the title tale from _The Tree of Heaven_) are brilliant, both artistically and as early examples of what became known as "weird tales." The writing in all of the _King in Yellow_ stories is brilliant, and the plots are engaging. But the rest of his output, as Joshi describes, is terrible: attempts to be humorous that fail, repetitive plots (and details of plots), and a real slog to get through. When Chambers is good he is REALLY good; when he's horrible, he is indescribably horrible. On balance, this book is mostly horrible (and some of it isn't even "weird fiction," contrary to the publisher's title), but on the basis of the quality of those few stories that are brilliant (and this book being perhaps the one place to find them outside of their original printings in the late 19th to early 20th centuries) I have to recommend its purchase or perusal. And Johsi's introduction gets one thing wrong: Chambers's work IS worthwhile for purposes of cultural analysis (Joshi's assertion to the contrary merely reveals that he hasn't read enough cultural theory and criticism to understand why his statement is false).
September 23, 2014
"The Yellow Sign" is a short story by American writer Robert W. Chambers, published in the novel “The King in Yellow”. The collected story’s which I now am determined to read follow a connected theme of a forbidden play “The King in Yellow” which induces despair in those who read it causing them to go insane. I have been reading a lot of H.P . Lovecraft lately and as The King in Yellow was deeply admired by Lovecraft and said to be one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction it was on that basis that I picked up this random short tale to have a read, and it is extraordinary.
The horror in this book isn’t something you can see or hear creeping up behind you it’s something elsewhere, elusive. It is a slight adjustment to your perspective that grows and grows into an uneasy feeling of something being wrong. The horror is one of being stalked, not necessarily of a corporal being but more of an idea that sits in your mind like a parasite, a nagging thought that doesn’t ever quite go away. A cursed object and forbidden knowledge. The inexplicable fear of the unknown balanced with the overwhelming curiosity is what makes us human, and what also drives the supernatural undertones of this story.
The horror in this book isn’t something you can see or hear creeping up behind you it’s something elsewhere, elusive. It is a slight adjustment to your perspective that grows and grows into an uneasy feeling of something being wrong. The horror is one of being stalked, not necessarily of a corporal being but more of an idea that sits in your mind like a parasite, a nagging thought that doesn’t ever quite go away. A cursed object and forbidden knowledge. The inexplicable fear of the unknown balanced with the overwhelming curiosity is what makes us human, and what also drives the supernatural undertones of this story.
August 3, 2017
Did not finish.
What a disappointment.
To be honest I'd never heard of this author until I did a bit of research after thoroughly enjoying the first season of True Detective. I wanted to know more about The King in Yellow and Carcosa so I Googled it and discovered that it was based on Chambers work.
It was hard to find a copy which included The King in Yellow stories and this is what I found.
After reading the relevant stories I feel like I know nothing more than what the show and Google told me.
The Yellow Sign was a pretty good story, but failed slightly in the delivery. The other stories weren't interesting or scary.
I read a few pages into the next section, The Maker of Moons and found this just as dull as the first lot, so I gave up. There are too many other books out there waiting for me to read to waste time on this.
I'm not the best at putting books into categories, but if this weird fiction then my every day life is an eerie existence.
Unless you have a lot of time on your hands I'd recommend people don't bother with this book.
What a disappointment.
To be honest I'd never heard of this author until I did a bit of research after thoroughly enjoying the first season of True Detective. I wanted to know more about The King in Yellow and Carcosa so I Googled it and discovered that it was based on Chambers work.
It was hard to find a copy which included The King in Yellow stories and this is what I found.
After reading the relevant stories I feel like I know nothing more than what the show and Google told me.
The Yellow Sign was a pretty good story, but failed slightly in the delivery. The other stories weren't interesting or scary.
I read a few pages into the next section, The Maker of Moons and found this just as dull as the first lot, so I gave up. There are too many other books out there waiting for me to read to waste time on this.
I'm not the best at putting books into categories, but if this weird fiction then my every day life is an eerie existence.
Unless you have a lot of time on your hands I'd recommend people don't bother with this book.
May 21, 2015
Collection of weird stories, really weird in this case... not in the same sense of Lovecraft's, but because Chambers had some potential to write good, interesting stories /novels and what he did in this collection was not what I had expected.
When I first heard of him, it was in a book by Lovecraft. Of course I thought: "Oh, Lovecraft used to read this guy, so, let's give it a try..." I had especially expected The King in Yellow to be the best story here... in fact, that may be so, as they're not that interesting: they all deal with the emerging age of science, the environment of NYC, a recurrent Professor Farrago, a protagonist who can never marry the woman he loves, no supernatural beings or creatures as I expected...
When I first heard of him, it was in a book by Lovecraft. Of course I thought: "Oh, Lovecraft used to read this guy, so, let's give it a try..." I had especially expected The King in Yellow to be the best story here... in fact, that may be so, as they're not that interesting: they all deal with the emerging age of science, the environment of NYC, a recurrent Professor Farrago, a protagonist who can never marry the woman he loves, no supernatural beings or creatures as I expected...
April 29, 2008
This author was mentioned in a review of some Lovecraft book on some other website, so I picked it up out of curiosity. Well, I can see why Lovecraft fans would like this guy, but most of the stories in this anthology just did not do it for me. There were a couple of chilling reads here and there, most notably the title story which is very disturbing indeed. But overall, I felt like I was reading one of the hundreds of lesser authors who wrote around the same time as Lovecraft yet were nowhere near as hauntingly effective. If you're a fan of late Victorian and turn-of-the-century gothic/supernatural stuff, it may be worth a read. Otherwise skip it.
September 16, 2015
I originally picked this up because I wanted to read about the mythology behind "The King in Yellow." I'm still intrigued, even after having read that set of stories twice. The others in the book ranged from a bit silly to very interesting, and after finishing I rather felt Chambers had been given the short end of the stick in terms of the little attention paid to him as an important author of weird fiction (especially in comparison to Lovecraft, for example). Chambers remains a master of ambiguity and his narrators have very distinct voices. Definitely worth a read if you like a Gothic or weird stories.
October 19, 2014
this book is as thick as 3 other chaosium books. has ALL the weird stuff from chambers. really classic weird fiction, stuff that inspired hp lovecraft with some of his own stories. collects much more than just the original 'the king in yellow' stories with mentions of hastur, my favorites aside from those are stories from 'in search of the unknown' and 'police!!!" which are well told short stories involving various weird fauna in remote areas of the new world and the fates that befall those who are lucky enough to discover them. 'the ladies of the lake' is a favorite. these are quite good weird stories.
May 7, 2014
I like the way the first block of stories reference the fact that reading the King in Yellow drives people mad. And what is the title of those stories? The King in Yellow.
I bet the author thought himself a ladies man and yet someone else always gets the girl. Seems to happen to his main character all the time.
Each collection of stories definitely have a theme, some more loosely than others. Mostly creepy known ghosts and monsters. Only a couple try for a fantastical creature that to me meant Lovecraftian.
I bet the author thought himself a ladies man and yet someone else always gets the girl. Seems to happen to his main character all the time.
Each collection of stories definitely have a theme, some more loosely than others. Mostly creepy known ghosts and monsters. Only a couple try for a fantastical creature that to me meant Lovecraftian.
October 11, 2014
While not every story in this collection of smaller volumes is fantastic, all of them contain elements of greatness and the truly wonderful ones contain great moments of oddity and old-school horror. If you haven't heard of Robert Chambers, he fits somewhere between Poe and Lovecraft with a slightly more romantic bent (some of his novels, not included here, were indeed romances). Also, if you were wondering all about that Yellow King and Carcossa stuff mentioned in Season 1 of "True Detective", this will give you some insight.
January 26, 2015
Excellent post-Poe, pre-Lovecraft "weird" fiction. Impeccably original with a writing style that leans towards the classicist side of the spectrum, but is definitely not too heady for pulp-heads. The madness in "The Repairer of Reputations" and "The Yellow Sign" will stay with you for quite some time. Highly recommended if you like late 19th Century/early 20th Century horror.
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