The King in Yellow
Sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, something happened, something . . . weird. In the dark halls of ivy-clad manors, in the ancient woodland escapes of New England, a generation of authors was inspired to radically reinterpret the horror and fantasy writing of the past. In place of vampires and werewolves were atmospheres of breathless dread, terrifying visions of long-forgotten gods and unexplainable, writhing monsters. The strange and extraordinary work from that time remains incredibly influential on all aspects of literature today. Penguin Weird Fiction is a celebration of the very best of this writing, a store of novels and tales that for generations have delighted and horrified.
About the Author
Robert W. Chambers (1865–1933) was born in Brooklyn, New York. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chambers enthralled readers with his strange and supernatural stories, most notably in his defining collection The King in Yellow. Blending seamlessly elements of horror, romance and the decadence of the fin de siècle period, with a frequent emphasis on the mysterious and the malevolent, Chambers influenced generations of writers, including H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and has proved to be a defining voice in Weird Fiction.
The King in Yellow
Robert W. Chambers
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To My Brother
The Repairer of Reputations
‘Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.
‘Strange is the night where black stars rise And strange moons circle through the skies, But stranger still is Lost Carcosa.
‘Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
‘Song of my soul, my voice is dead, Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa.’
– Cassilda’s song in ‘The King in Yellow’, act i., scene 2.
‘Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps que la nôtre . . . Voilà toute la différence.’
Towards the end of the year 1920 the government of the United States had practically completed the programme adopted during the last months of President Winthrop’s administration. The country was apparently tranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labor questions were settled. The war with Germany, incident on that country’s seizure of the Samoan Islands, had left no visible scars upon the republic, and the temporary occupation of Norfolk by the invading army had been forgotten in the joy over repeated naval victories and the subsequent ridiculous plight of General Von Gartenlaube’s forces in the State of New Jersey. The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had paid one hundred per cent, and the territory of Samoa was well worth its cost as a coaling station. The country was in a superb state of defence. Every coast city had been well supplied with land fortifications; the army, under the parental eye of the general staff, organized according to the Prussian system, had been increased to three hundred thousand men, with a territorial reserve of a million; and six magnificent squadrons of cruisers and battle-ships patrolled the six stations of the navigable seas, leaving a steam reserve amply fitted to control home waters. The gentlemen from the West had at last been constrained to acknowledge that a college for the training of diplomats was as necessary as law schools are for the training of barristers; consequently we were no longer represented abroad by incompetent patriots. The nation was prosperous. Chicago, for a moment paralyzed after a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and imperial, and more beautiful than the white city which had been built for its plaything in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was replacing