Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Robert W. Chambers is an almost forgotten writer of fantasy and horror who should be honored for his originality and insights into human nature. To read the King In Yellow is to give Robert W. Chambers a chance to show how a well written psychological story can unfold. His stories build slowly and soon pull the reader into a world only Chambers could envision. To reveal any of his story plots here would do him an injustice.
The sad part of today's readership is that many no longer have the patience to move slowly and deeply through a story to it's climax. Everything must be swift and obvious these days. If you read Robert W. Chambers prepare for a time in another world that slowly sucks you into the unknown and often the terrifying. Grab an armchair, turn off the tv and the radio and quietly allow yourself to be absorbed by Chambers masterful writing. You will be delighted.

An excellent collection by a lesser-known writer of short
horror fiction, this volume contains one of my all-time favorite short stories in any genre, "The Harbor-Master."
Buy and read this book!

Robert Chamber's title story became one of the most important works in American supernatural fiction since those of Poe, representing one of the first attempts to establish the horror of the names: this reprints all the supernatural stories from THE KING IN YELLOW, presenting some of Chambers' best from a range of sources. A highly recommended pick for fans of horror and the supernatural.

I owned this book a long time ago -- and may buy myself another copy. The other reviews here give good opinions and recommend various stories and chapters in this book -- but do not seem to say what this book is ALL ABOUT. For those who have never heard of this classic, here is a summary of the book's plot. "The King In Yellow" is about a book, (called "The King In Yellow"), that drives people insane, or nearly insane, when they read it. The various chapters detail what happens to various people when they read this book.

It is a masterpiece, but must be read carefully and slowly. Do read it. Your patience will be rewarded!