The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers

This is a collection of short stories written by Robert W. Chambers, published in 1895. The book is probably best known for the first four stories that share a common theme of the eponymous play, so horrific that even looking at the script will send the reader mad. There are tantalising hints of the contents of the play with short extracts of the text and poems hinting at a mysterious entity known as the King in Yellow and his associated yellow sign. The horror aspect of these stories was hugely influential on authors such as HP Lovecraft who incorporated aspects of them into his own Cthulhu Mythos. 

The remaining stories are quite different in tone, some poems, two tales with twist endings, a grim war story set during the siege of Paris in 1870, and the final two concerning the aimless lives of some bohemian American art students in Paris. It's fair to say that I wouldn't have naturally grouped these stories together with the first four, given the wildly different themes and tone of them. 

I would say that this book is worth reading, although the last three stories could easily be skipped and you wouldn't have missed much.

Here's a quick summary of each of the stories in this book

• The Repairer of Reputations

This story in set in an imagined future New York City of 1920, 25 years into the future at the time of writing, making this effectively science fiction. The world described seems a bleak one, with America operating as an Apartheid regime with Jewish people and African Americans excluded. Suicide has been legalised and encouraged through the establishment of publicly available 'Lethal Chambers' for those wishing to end their lives. The narrator of the story falls under the spell of The King in Yellow, becoming increasingly deluded and obsessed, as events progress. 

• The Mask

This one is pretty much a mad scientist story, albeit with the scientist being a sculptor experimenting with a mysterious solution capable of turning any living creature into a perfect marble replica. There is a love triangle between the artist, his friend Alec and Genevieve, the model for his most famous work. This time, Alec is the one succumbing to the deadly play, and while there's no real surprise about the denoument (can we say Checkov's transforming pool?) it's neatly done.

• In the Court of the Dragon

 By now it should be fairly clear that reading The King in Yellow isn't going to end well, and this is a short but grim tale of someone being pursued by a mysterious figure with no escape possible. There is a dream like quality to it, with an appropriately nightmarish conclusion. Probably one of my favourites out of these.

• The Yellow Sign

This is very similar to the previous story, but the nature of the pursuer is more explicitly described, with the victims this time being an artist and his nude model, who he of course is obsessed with. The book this time becomes a sort of forbidden fruit, tempting the unwary before inevitably dooming them. We also get the device of The Yellow Sign itself, a harbinger of doom.

• The Demoiselle d'Ys

This is an interesting story of an American fellow who becomes lost on a desolate moorland in France and is rescued by a beautiful young French woman, out hunting with a falcon, and speaking with an unusual accent. There is a hint of romantic attraction as she takes him back to the castle that she calls home, introducing him to the servants that work for her there. Of course, there is a twist to come, but again it works well in a short story of this length.

• The Prophet's Paradise

A series of short prose poems, that may of may not be linked to themes introduced earlier. I wasn't really sure what to make of these.

• The Street of the Four Winds

Another artist, and another romantic plot of sorts, although in this case it's with a mangy cat that turns up on the doorstep of his garret and inveigles herself into his life with feline ease. This is another short story, that does not outstay its welcome.

• The Street of the First Shell

After the horror, poetry and gothic romances, this story feels wildly different. We have artists in Paris again (check) but this time, we are in Paris in 1870 and the city is under siege, with the inhabitants starving and shells dropping at random into the streets, bringing death and destruction at random. Unexpectedly grim.

• The Street of Our Lady of the Fields / Rue Baree

The last two stories are the longest and thematically similar, dealing with bohemian American art students loafing about in Paris. These are notable mainly for some of the outrageous transliterated French accents that really wouldn't have been out of place on Allo, Allo. I would be hard pressed to say what these ones were about, to be honest.