THE KING IN YELLOW
If you’re like me you’re sick to death of the flood of vampire and zombie stories in recent decades. It’s gotten unbelievably monotonous. When it comes to Goths in particular you just want to shake them and scream “There’s more to Gothic horror than just vampires!”
In that spirit and in keeping with my blog’s overall theme here’s a look at an 1895 work of Gothic horror that is among my favorite Halloween reading material, The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers. This unjustly neglected book was praised by H.P. Lovecraft himself and has been called America’s most influential volume of horror between Poe and the moderns.
The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories in which a published but unperformed play, also titled The King in Yellow, brings madness and death to anyone who reads it. Daring to peruse the pages of this damnable drama also makes the reader susceptible to attacks from the sinister minions of the eponymous King, who rules over his own private Hell like Freddy Krueger rules over the Dream Dimension. Here, then, are the Continue reading
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