Author(s): R.W. CHAMBERS

Classics

I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.

The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published in 1895. The book is named for the fictional play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The first half of the book features highly esteemed horror stories, and the book has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural.

Lin Carter called it "an absolute masterpiece, probably the single greatest book of weird fantasy written in this country between the death of Poe and the rise of Lovecraft".

H. P. Lovecraft read The King in Yellow in early 1927 and included passing references to various things and places from the book—such as the Lake of Hali and the Yellow Sign—in "The Whisperer in Darkness", one of his main Cthulhu Mythos stories.