The King in Yellow Rises [Annotated] [Translated]: The Lost Book of Carcosa

by Charles Baudelaire, Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers

THE KING IN YELLOW THE LOST BOOK OF CARCOSA is a companion volume to the bestselling Wonderland Imprints illustrated edition of Robert William Chambers’ incomparable weird fiction masterpiece, THE KING IN YELLOW. This fascinating tome traces the secret legacy of The King in Yellow in chronological order, from the bloodline of Edgar Allan Poe to Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Naduad to Ambrose Bierce, Robert Chambers to H. P. Lovecraft, and into the present day with such tributes as TRUE DETECTIVE and A SEASON IN CARCOSA. Come unravel the mystery of the plague masquerade, the Tatterdemalion, the Pallid Mask, Hastur, Hali, and the unspeakable riddle of the Yellow Sign.This work is one of the volumes of the LOVECRAFTIAN LIBRARIUM, a treasury of the masterworks which H.P. Lovecraft modeled his own writings upon in his development of the Cthulhu Mythos. For readers interested in the very best tales of the supernatural, the Librarium will prove to be one of the finest collections of classic essentials!This unique collection includes fifteen stories and poems, with 37 illustrations; comprising 57,000 words, and approximately 220 pages. From Wonderland Imprints, Only the Finest Works of Fantasy.

Genres: Horror, Weird Fiction

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 21, 2014

About the author

Public condemned Les fleurs du mal (1857), obscene only volume of French writer, translator, and critic Charles Pierre Baudelaire; expanded in 1861, it exerted an enormous influence over later symbolist and modernist poets.

Reputation of Charles Pierre Baudelaire rests primarily on perhaps the most important literary art collection, published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his early experiment Petits poèmes en prose (1868) ( Little Prose Poems ) most succeeded and innovated of the time.

From financial disaster to prosecution for blasphemy, drama and strife filled life of known Baudelaire with highly controversial and often dark tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Long after his death, his name represents depravity and vice. He seemingly speaks directly to the 20th century civilization.

Reviews

[Evadare Volney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The TV series True Detective brought a revival of interest in the King In Yellow mythos, and this eerie little book is a great handy source to link not only all Robert W Chambers stories that involve the sinister play, the Yellow Sign, and the lost city of Carcosa, but a lot of his sources and inspirations as well, most directly Ambrose Bierce. And while Baudelaire's poem and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper, and the Lord Dunsany tales aren't properly part of the mythos, it's not a reach to see why they're included here, for cultural context if nothing else - and if Poe's The Masque of the Red Death didn't inspire RWC at least a little bit, I'll eat my...um...mask. It's a pity the relevant Chambers-inspired stories of HP Lovecraft can't be included here for copyright reasons (and the editor/translator explains which stories you need to read in the afterward essay anyway), but the star I'd have docked for missing them is restored by the inclusion of the decadent, surrealistic, nightmarish illustrations, which bring this collection up to a new level.

[M.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good set of stories but some of the translations were a little rough. The annotations were often interesting and I picked up some facts I didn't know about the genealogy of stories in the Carcosa/King in Yellow mythos. Some conclusions in the annotations were a bit of a stretch, but they were interesting nonetheless.

If you're unfamiliar, Chambers' King in Yellow stories were cited by Lovecraft as among his favorites. They're surreal and dark. In addition to some of Chambers' stories, this book includes stories by others that influenced (or were influenced by) Chambers' writing.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found the Yellow Sign yet?

Interesting stories connecting influence Chambers’ classic four stories pertaining to the dreaded man in rags, the King in Yellow. However, Dunsany’s Bethmoora and Hashish Man, I’m a bit skeptical of their connection with Chambers’ work. Still, they’re all good. Yet, besides mentioning A Season in Carcosa, there’s also a probably hard to find book of short stories, A Rehearsal in Oblivion.

[Onur · Rating 4 out of 5]

in the place of baudelaire’s “lost halo”

[Joelendil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects Robert W. Chambers’ original King in Yellow stories as well as classic works that influenced or riffed on his ideas. There is no denying the quality of the stories contained here or their influence on later weird fiction and cosmic horror.

The editor (I think it is the same person listed as the translator) is what cost this book a star. I appreciate him rounding up these stories and printing them all in one place, but his commentary is sporadic and uneven in style. He wraps up the book with a rambling section about these stories’ influenced on H. P. Lovecraft and then apologizes for not including any Lovecraft stories (yet) because he’s not sure if they’re in the public domain…but he promises to add these and others later if he is able. It all felt a bit amateur.