New Publishing: A Chapter Guide About The King In Yellow > Likes and Comments
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I look forward to reading this. I bought a Kindle copy of "The King in Yellow" in response to reading one of your earlier articles, though I have to confess that I haven't read it yet. It's clearly now time that I did!
Thank you for your kind words. In writing this guide I learned something about the torturous publishing history of "The King in Yellow." The short advice is that the edition to avoid is "The King in Yellow and Other Horrors" (1970) from Dover. Beyond that it gets tricky; the first edition (1895) has some errors fixed in the second edition (1902), but the second edition cuts out one of the stories ("In the Court of the Dragon"). What a mess. The guide goes through the textual variations on a story by story basis.
Thanks, Michael. I've just checked and the edition of "The King in Yellow" that I've got is the Wordsworth edition from 2010 with an introduction by David Stuart Davies.
Looking at the sample selection of your edition, I divine by a birth date (one of the flags) that it is first edition (1895), which is least bad, and on balance, probably the best. (I admit I have yet to find an edition that includes the 1902 corrections and all of the stories.) Having looked over the introduction, I advise you to skip it, since my text will give you all the good stuff and avoid some of the too common and not good stuff.
Perfect! Thank you, Michael, for going the extra literary mile. I have already started on the first story....
Michael - hello again. I am making my way slowly through "The King in Yellow", reading the relevant section of your chapter guide as I finish reading each story.
I have just finished reading "The Demoiselle d'Ys" and your commentary upon it and wonder if I might draw your attention to one or two details in the story.
You helpfully pointed out the Edenic echoes and references in the previous story, "The Yellow Sign", with the discovery of the snakeskin bound copy of "The King in Yellow" marking Mr Scott and Tessie's fall from grace, as evidenced by Tessie's shame at her nakedness. But although you point out (p22) the "Orpheus reversed" motif in "The Demoiselle d'Ys", you don't seem to mention the obviously Edenic references in this story too. (Do you cover this later in the book? I had a look ahead but couldn't find any references to this.)
Chambers describes Jeanne in terms that clearly link her with both Eve and the Virgin Mary. Here is his description of her garden (note the explicit reference to her "childlike innocence"):
She rose and took my hand again with a childlike innocence of possession, and we walked through the garden and fruit trees to a grassy lawn which was bordered by a brook. Over the lawn were scattered fifteen or twenty stumps of trees – partially embedded in the grass – and upon all of these except two sat falcons.
Compare this with the description of Eden in Genesis 2.8-17:
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Like Eden, Jeanne's garden contains fruit trees, and is well watered by running water. If I understand the story correctly, the innocent and virgin Jeanne is living in the Earthly Paradise, a post-lapsarian Eden that has been partly restored. Some of the fruit trees ("fifteen or twenty") have been cut down, but the pre-lapsarian ability of humans to talk to animals, found in many popular myths and mediaeval commentaries on Eden, has been partly restored in Jeanne's ability to tame and talk to her various hawks and falcons.
I assume, however, that the two stumps which are not occupied by tame falcons are, respectively, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, both of which are too sacred to be used as perches.
Philip's role is to save this new Eve from the serpent, which he does:
I looked around and at first saw nothing to cause the commotion, which was now heightened by the screams and flapping of all the birds. Then my eye fell upon the flat rock beside the stream from which the girl had risen. A grey serpent was moving slowly across the surface of the boulder, and the eyes in its flat triangular head sparkled like jet. ‘A couleuvre,’ she said quietly. ‘It is harmless, is it not?’ I asked. She pointed to the black V-shaped figure on the neck. ‘It is certain death,’ she said; ‘it is a viper.’ We watched the reptile moving slowly over the smooth rock to where the sunlight fell in a broad warm patch. I started forward to examine it, but she clung to my arm crying, ‘Don’t, Philip, I am afraid.’ ‘For me?’ ‘For you, Philip – I love you.’ Then I took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips, but all I could say was: ‘Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne.’ And as she lay trembling on my breast, something struck my foot in the grass below, but I did not heed it. Then again something struck my ankle, and a sharp pain shot through me. I looked into the sweet face of Jeanne d’Ys and kissed her, and with all my strength lifted her in my arms and flung her from me. Then bending, I tore the viper from my ankle and set my heel upon its head. I remember feeling weak and numb – I remember falling to the ground. Through my slowly glazing eyes I saw Jeanne’s white face bending close to mine, and when the light in my eyes went out I still felt her arms about my neck, and her soft cheek against my drawn lips.
Notice the clear reference to God's curse on the serpent as recorded in Genesis 3.14-15:
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
At the obvious practical level, this curse refers to the fact that, throughout history, venomous snakes have bitten people's legs and humans, in their own defence, have stamped on venomous snakes when no better defence was available. But these verses have long been interpreted as a Messianic prophecy, equating the serpent to Satan, whose corrupting and temptation leads to humans putting Christ, the Son of Man, to death on a cross ("biting his heel"), a death which turns the tables by decisively defeating Satan and winning salvation for all humanity ("crushing Satan's head").
Philip saves Jeanne, but also loses her, because he dies within her time-frame and wakes up back in his present. His death is sacrificial: he saves the life of the beloved at the cost of his own. This makes him in part a sort of "second Adam", which, of course, is one of the descriptions the New Testament gives to Christ (see Romans 5.14 and 1 Corinthians 15.22 & 45).
So I see the space between "The Yellow Sign" and "The Demoiselle d'Ys" as a hinge in the sequence of stories in "The King in Yellow". In the first story, the hero is unfaithful to Tessie, spending the night with another woman after he has professed love to his devoted model, and is subsequently excluded from "Eden" and damned. In the second story, the chaste lover loses his life in defence of his beloved but, though his sacrificial love is costly, he is rewarded with a vision of Paradise partly restored and a confirmation in the warm and fragrant woman's glove left on the grave at the end of the story that this vision and the love he experienced was real and not imaginary.
In this respect, my interpretation differs from yours in that I see the identification between Jeanne and the Virgin Mary as confirming her suffering (see Simeon's prophecy to Mary in Luke 2.34-35 and the reference to the sword which will pierce her heart), but also, paradoxically, her salvation (she is not bitten by the snake).
Nigel
Thank you for the notes, Nigel. I did not go in the Edenic direction for this particular story in later comments, but you provide compelling details! Food for thought.
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Nigel
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Aug 28, 2024 10:55AM
I look forward to reading this. I bought a Kindle copy of "The King in Yellow" in response to reading one of your earlier articles, though I have to confess that I haven't read it yet. It's clearly now time that I did!
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Thank you for your kind words. In writing this guide I learned something about the torturous publishing history of "The King in Yellow." The short advice is that the edition to avoid is "The King in Yellow and Other Horrors" (1970) from Dover. Beyond that it gets tricky; the first edition (1895) has some errors fixed in the second edition (1902), but the second edition cuts out one of the stories ("In the Court of the Dragon"). What a mess. The guide goes through the textual variations on a story by story basis.
Thanks, Michael. I've just checked and the edition of "The King in Yellow" that I've got is the Wordsworth edition from 2010 with an introduction by David Stuart Davies.
Looking at the sample selection of your edition, I divine by a birth date (one of the flags) that it is first edition (1895), which is least bad, and on balance, probably the best. (I admit I have yet to find an edition that includes the 1902 corrections and all of the stories.) Having looked over the introduction, I advise you to skip it, since my text will give you all the good stuff and avoid some of the too common and not good stuff.
Perfect! Thank you, Michael, for going the extra literary mile. I have already started on the first story....
Michael - hello again. I am making my way slowly through "The King in Yellow", reading the relevant section of your chapter guide as I finish reading each story. I have just finished reading "The Demoiselle d'Ys" and your commentary upon it and wonder if I might draw your attention to one or two details in the story.
You helpfully pointed out the Edenic echoes and references in the previous story, "The Yellow Sign", with the discovery of the snakeskin bound copy of "The King in Yellow" marking Mr Scott and Tessie's fall from grace, as evidenced by Tessie's shame at her nakedness. But although you point out (p22) the "Orpheus reversed" motif in "The Demoiselle d'Ys", you don't seem to mention the obviously Edenic references in this story too. (Do you cover this later in the book? I had a look ahead but couldn't find any references to this.)
Chambers describes Jeanne in terms that clearly link her with both Eve and the Virgin Mary. Here is his description of her garden (note the explicit reference to her "childlike innocence"):
She rose and took my hand again with a childlike innocence of possession, and we walked through the garden and fruit trees to a grassy lawn which was bordered by a brook. Over the lawn were scattered fifteen or twenty stumps of trees – partially embedded in the grass – and upon all of these except two sat falcons.
Compare this with the description of Eden in Genesis 2.8-17:
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Like Eden, Jeanne's garden contains fruit trees, and is well watered by running water. If I understand the story correctly, the innocent and virgin Jeanne is living in the Earthly Paradise, a post-lapsarian Eden that has been partly restored. Some of the fruit trees ("fifteen or twenty") have been cut down, but the pre-lapsarian ability of humans to talk to animals, found in many popular myths and mediaeval commentaries on Eden, has been partly restored in Jeanne's ability to tame and talk to her various hawks and falcons.
I assume, however, that the two stumps which are not occupied by tame falcons are, respectively, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, both of which are too sacred to be used as perches.
Philip's role is to save this new Eve from the serpent, which he does:
I looked around and at first saw nothing to cause the commotion, which was now heightened by the screams and flapping of all the birds. Then my eye fell upon the flat rock beside the stream from which the girl had risen. A grey serpent was moving slowly across the surface of the boulder, and the eyes in its flat triangular head sparkled like jet. ‘A couleuvre,’ she said quietly. ‘It is harmless, is it not?’ I asked. She pointed to the black V-shaped figure on the neck. ‘It is certain death,’ she said; ‘it is a viper.’ We watched the reptile moving slowly over the smooth rock to where the sunlight fell in a broad warm patch. I started forward to examine it, but she clung to my arm crying, ‘Don’t, Philip, I am afraid.’ ‘For me?’ ‘For you, Philip – I love you.’ Then I took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips, but all I could say was: ‘Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne.’ And as she lay trembling on my breast, something struck my foot in the grass below, but I did not heed it. Then again something struck my ankle, and a sharp pain shot through me. I looked into the sweet face of Jeanne d’Ys and kissed her, and with all my strength lifted her in my arms and flung her from me. Then bending, I tore the viper from my ankle and set my heel upon its head. I remember feeling weak and numb – I remember falling to the ground. Through my slowly glazing eyes I saw Jeanne’s white face bending close to mine, and when the light in my eyes went out I still felt her arms about my neck, and her soft cheek against my drawn lips.
Notice the clear reference to God's curse on the serpent as recorded in Genesis 3.14-15:
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
At the obvious practical level, this curse refers to the fact that, throughout history, venomous snakes have bitten people's legs and humans, in their own defence, have stamped on venomous snakes when no better defence was available. But these verses have long been interpreted as a Messianic prophecy, equating the serpent to Satan, whose corrupting and temptation leads to humans putting Christ, the Son of Man, to death on a cross ("biting his heel"), a death which turns the tables by decisively defeating Satan and winning salvation for all humanity ("crushing Satan's head").
Philip saves Jeanne, but also loses her, because he dies within her time-frame and wakes up back in his present. His death is sacrificial: he saves the life of the beloved at the cost of his own. This makes him in part a sort of "second Adam", which, of course, is one of the descriptions the New Testament gives to Christ (see Romans 5.14 and 1 Corinthians 15.22 & 45).
So I see the space between "The Yellow Sign" and "The Demoiselle d'Ys" as a hinge in the sequence of stories in "The King in Yellow". In the first story, the hero is unfaithful to Tessie, spending the night with another woman after he has professed love to his devoted model, and is subsequently excluded from "Eden" and damned. In the second story, the chaste lover loses his life in defence of his beloved but, though his sacrificial love is costly, he is rewarded with a vision of Paradise partly restored and a confirmation in the warm and fragrant woman's glove left on the grave at the end of the story that this vision and the love he experienced was real and not imaginary.
In this respect, my interpretation differs from yours in that I see the identification between Jeanne and the Virgin Mary as confirming her suffering (see Simeon's prophecy to Mary in Luke 2.34-35 and the reference to the sword which will pierce her heart), but also, paradoxically, her salvation (she is not bitten by the snake).
Nigel
Thank you for the notes, Nigel. I did not go in the Edenic direction for this particular story in later comments, but you provide compelling details! Food for thought.
