Robert W Chambers – The King In Yellow

“”…For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake.” – Attributed to Hildred Castaigne, narrator of “The Repairer of Reputations.”
The weird tales in this slim volume are all linked by a play, the second act of which reveals truths so terrible and beautiful that it drives all who read it to despair: The King in Yellow.
I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon . . . I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth–a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. These four macabre, uncanny, and unsettling stories are some of the most thrilling ever written in the field of weird fiction, exploring themes of the supernatural, spirituality, and the potentially corrosive influence of belief in the afterlife. Since their first publication in 1895, they have become a cult classic, influencing everyone from the renowned master of cosmic horror, H.P Lovecraft, to the creators of HBO’s True Detective.”

Dover Publishing, 1970 Softcover edition. Some splaying to wraps.