The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories (Dover Mystery, Detective, & Other Fiction) [Paperback]

Robert W. Chambers (Author), E. F. Bleiler (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2004 | Series: Dover Mystery, Detective, & Other Fiction

A treasured source for Lovecraft, Howard, and others, this collection endures as a work of remarkable power. Includes all the stories from The King in Yellow — "Yellow Sign," "Repairer of Reputations," "Demoiselle d'Ys," and others — plus stories from other sources, including three early sci-fi fantasies from In Search of the Unknown. 12 total.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (July 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486437507
• ISBN-13: 978-0486437507
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have for Lovecraft fans, December 25, 2004

By 

J. W. Kennedy "in statu uiae et meriti" (Richmond, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories (Dover Mystery, Detective, & Other Fiction) (Paperback)

HP Lovecraft was heavily inspired by Chambers' wierd tales from _The King in Yellow_. (He stole the name and vague concept of Hastur from it.) The frustrating thing about RW Chambers is that he COULD write very well, but for some reason he usually didn't. At his best he could weave an atmosphere of terrifying hallucinatory brilliance. At his worst he was hokey, sentimental, sappy, and tiresome. Half of his original _The King in Yellow_ consists of dopey romance stories that will infuriate the wierd fiction fan. Not so here. This Dover collection has only the best tales from _The King in Yellow_, as well as a number of other chilling morsels picked from Chambers' large body of later (mostly forgettable) work.

You should get hold of this collection just for "The Repairer of Reputations," which ranks as a superior masterpiece of surreal paranoid delirium. It's one of the top 5 wierd stories of all time, and actually BETTER than anything by Lovecraft.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Darkly Beguiling, September 7, 2010

By 

Larry Dugan (Del Rio, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories (Dover Mystery, Detective, & Other Fiction) (Paperback)

Any collection of Robert W Chambers's "King in Yellow" stories is a rare and welcome gift, and the best of those stories--"The Yellow Sign," "The Repairer of Reputations," and "In the Court of the Dragon"--are included in this volume. Curiously, though, others are omitted in favor of tales that, while quite good, simply don't seem to be part of the KIY cycle. The missing stories, in this reviewer's opinion, are as follows: "The Prophet's Paradise," "The Street of the Four Winds," "The Street of the First Shell," "The Street of Our Lady of the Fields," and "Rue Barree." Had the current volume included these tales, I would have given it the highest possible marks. Still, it is an excellent collection that I highly recommend to anyone interested in the work of the inestimable and terribly underrated Robert W. Chambers.

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars poor quality, December 12, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories (Dover Mystery, Detective, & Other Fiction) (Paperback)

R. W. Chambers has achieved a curiously high standing among horror enthusiasts based upon two or three of his early books. The vast majority of his works are trashy romance novels utterly devoid of literary merit. He had very little artistic integrity: he once claimed that being able to write a good book was of less importance to him than rearranging the furniture of his cabin. Yet despite of this he has carried down through the ages a reputation of being a pioneering author of supernatural fiction. How did this happen? It may be simply because his work, although unexceptional in itself, has spawned a host of very well known and popular imitators, among them the legendary pulp writer H. P. Lovecraft. The King in Yellow may be viewed as the prototype upon which was modeled the Cthulhu mythos as we know it.

Unfortunately the quality of the stories in this book are very mixed. The tales here compiled are sadly flawed due to the fact that Chambers was unashamedly pandering to his intended audience: the uneducated, who in the 1800 hundreds formed a depressingly large percentage of the population. As a result his books sold phenomenally, becoming some of the highest selling volumes of the time. But the factor which so greatly contributed to his popularity at the time shows to his disadvantage here. The book is filled with cliches of the time. In approximately half of the stories a maudlin and unnecessary love story is worked in. Others are marred by his sickly and pitiful attempts at humor. As a whole the volume shows little literary merit.

There is, however, one redeeming feature. Although poorly realized, many of the tales here contain the first mentioning of concepts later used to greater advantage in the tales of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Enthusiasts of their works may find this book worth purchasing purely due to the influence it had upon these authors. To the general reader, however, The King in Yellow and Other Stories contains little of interest.