History of the Necronomicon [Paperback]

H. P. Lovecraft (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 12 pages
• Publisher: Necronomicon Press (June 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0318047152
• ISBN-13: 978-0318047157
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 7 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,870,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

H. P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction. His relatively small corpus of fiction--three short novels and about sixty short stories--has nevertheless exercised a wide influence on subsequent work in the field, and he is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction. H. P. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For your entertainment only, August 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: History of the Necronomicon (Paperback)

If you're into Lovecraft, you should enjoy this tongue-in-cheek work, which Lovecraft wrote to entertain those who thought there might be some reality to "the dreaded Necronomicon."

If you think the Necronomicon is *real* you should *definitely* read this, along with Lovecraft's letters and ample documentary evidence that the Necronomicon was a figment of Lovecraft's imagination.

If you're into *real* evil, you would do better to read "Mein Kampf" by A. Hitler, but maybe it wouldn't be as entertaining as a fantasy of wickedness, knowing the "real" horrors it led to.

Lovecraft was a thoroughgoing materialist. I wonder what he would have thought of those who find eldritch wisdom in a fictional work?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Necronomicon!, August 18, 2001

By 

A. Commentator - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of the Necronomicon (Paperback)

Many books are currently in print claiming to be the "Necronomicon," the forbidden book written in the 1st millenium by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred (go ahead and type "Necronomicon" in the Amazon.com search bar and see what you get!), but the book referenced in the fictional stories is always a tattered, musty, rotting old volume marked with fading letters which, if read, invariably drives the reader insane (to a greater or lesser degree) from terror.

This booklet does not contain the blasphemous secrets of the dread Necronomicon, nor do I suspect the many works masquerading under that name do. It is, however a reprint of a pamphlet published in 1938 and written in the finest Lovecraftian style. In the article he throws out historical names and dates to establish credibility, and admits his own ignorance about certain parts of the book's shaded past to make the work seem bigger than himself.

The best thing about "The History of the Necronomicon" is that it is printed from a scan of the original (1938) pamphlet and the fonts are just slightly marred (but still totally legible) enough to seem mysterious and arcane. An afterword by S.T. Joshi is included in the booklet, in which he explains that the number one reason many people today believe that the cursed Necronomicon is a real book is because of this pamphlet. Lovecraft wrote it as a matter-of-fact history, but, Joshi says, the letters H.P.L. wrote to his friends explain how he came up with the name of the book.

Even if you refuse to accept the arguments that the Necronomicon is a product of Lovecraft's imagination, this pamphlet is probably as close to the real Necronomicon as you can get... unless you can gain access to the vault of the Miskatonic University Library, in whose eldritch halls a closely guarded copy is kept under lock and key.

This booklet is a must for any serious Lovecraft fan!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovecraft was pulling a lot of chains..., July 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: History of the Necronomicon (Paperback)

This work was indeed a tongue-in-cheek history of a book Lovecraft may or may not have known existed, and shouldn't be taken as literal truth. The gist of it is correct, but stumbles on some of the details- Lovecraft married one of Aleister Crowley's old lovers, who most likely told him some fantastic tales about the tome that so fascinated Crowley. Lovecraft simply borrowed what he liked and expanded on it. The original Al-Azif by Abdul Alhazred, for example, is mostly history and light on the ritual. It does go into depth about the Great Old Ones, and is enormously inventive, but makes no mention of Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlothep or Azathoth. No copies of the translations exist in libraries today, in part because of a Nazi purge of occult literature (some Nazis were extremely interested in this sort of thing, and some say they warehoused what they confiscated), and in part due to a string of burglaries in which the books were stolen. These were probably the fault of Crowley, who commanded a powerful pseudo-Masonic lodge for some time and wished to destroy copies of the Necronomicon because parts of his own writings were directly copied from it. In short, the Necronomicon did and likely still does exist, but not as anything available on Amazon, and this history should be viewed as fiction.