The King in Yellow: Book Summary and Analysis
In 1895, Edward Chambers published a book of short stories entitled “The King in Yellow.” The book became a big influence for H.P. Lovecraft, and he incorporated elements of The King in Yellow into his mythology. Among the things that this book shaped in Lovecraft’s writing were the Elder Sign, Nyrlathotep, and, most importantly, the Necronomicon.
The Book:
The short stories in King do not share common characters or events. They are, however, clearly taking place in the same world, as they are all linked together by one element. In each story, the narrator reads a forbidden, censored play entitled The King in Yellow, to dramatic and horrific results.
The book is written in a gothic style clearly influenced by Edgar Allen Poe, but with a more cosmic scope similar to what Lovecraft would later popularize. Chambers typical style of writing, which was extremely romantic, shows in all of the stories, but the stories lean heavily in the direction of Gothic horror. The book is notable for being an early example of cosmic horror as well as being one of the first pieces of literature to utilize an “unreliable narrator” where the story is told by someone whose viewpoint cannot be trusted.
The book is a good read, but Chamber’s writing style involves telling you a lot of trivial details in the course of the story that are not interesting and are also unimportant to the plot, or that seem important to the plot, but are ultimately red herrings that have little to do with the body of the story, so that sometimes the plot gets lost in these diversions.
There are a total of four stories that compose The King in Yellow: The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, In the Court of the Dragon, and The Yellow Sign.
Summary of the Stories:
The Repairer of Reputations:
This is the classic story of one insane man’s quest to become “King of America” through a patented blend of walking around aimlessly, reading documents over and over again obsessively, admiring himself in the mirror with a tin crown on his head, and bumping off a few people. The story is told from the viewpoint of a man who is clearly crazy, so it is difficult throughout the narrative to tell how much of what he is relating is actually happening and how much is all in his head.
We know that the narrator is crazy both because he relates that, after a fall from his horse, he suffered a head injury and a severely altered personality that landed him in an asylum for a few years. If that’s not enough to drive him insane, he also read The King in Yellow several times within the asylum, a play that is notorious for driving the reader insane.
The narrator believes that he is an agent of The King in Yellow, and his co-conspirator is the titular “Repairer or Reputations,” a severely deformed and maimed recluse that believes himself to be in control of a vast network of agents, and uses them (he says) to assist in his business of restoring the good name of politicians and celebrities who have had their reputations soiled by scandal.
Together, the two men believe that the narrator is the next in line for the office of King of America. In order to achieve the office, however, the narrator must keep his cousin, who he believes proceeds him for the office, from marrying so that the office does not pass to his spouse or offspring, and also needs to dispose of his cousin to seize the throne, even though his cousin is one of the few people that treats him like a decent human being instead of a crazy person. Long story short, he kills his cousin and (and his psychiatrist) and is promptly arrested and returned to the looney bin.
The Mask:
In this story an artist and his friend discover a chemical fluid that instantly fossilizes any living organism submerged therein. They have a rivalry over a girl they both love. The narrator steps out when he discovers that the girl loves his friend (the artist) and retreats to another city. Then he receives a letter from the artist that says the girl accidentally took a dip in the pool which he had foolishly filled with his fossilizing fluid. She had been turned to stone. The artist could not handle the heartbreak and commits suicide, leaving his estate to his friend. The friend returns to the estate, and discovers all the living things the artist had turned to stone coming back to life. Including the girl. It turns out the fossilization was a temporary state. With the artist conveniently out of the picture, he and the girl get together. Also, at some point one of the three reads The King in Yellow, but it has nothing to do with the actual plot.
In the Court of the Dragon
In this story, the narrator is attending Catholic Mass after having just read The King in Yellow. He notices that the wing of the church that houses the organ is unusually dim and sinister looking compared to the rest of the well lit church. The organ music also seems to him to be oppressively sinister. When the organist rises to exit, his appearance disturbs the narrator. He is described as unnatural tall and slender dressed in black but with an extremely pale head.
As soon as the organist exits the wing, the narrator sees him come out from behind the organ again and head toward the exit. This time the organist looks directly at the narrator with a look of intense hatred.
Deeply horrified, the narrator immediately exits the church and heads home through the streets of the city. As he goes, he catches glimpses of the organist who seems to be following him.
When the narrator finally reaches the alley in which he lives, the organist corners him and approaches him as the alley darkens and the narrator feels his soul being ripped from his body.
Then the narrator wakes up in the church with the service still going on. For a moment he feels relief that it was all a dream. But then there is a blare of organ music, and a massive light floods down from above. As the narrator feels his soul ripped from his body, he sees the King in Yellow and hears him say “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
The Yellow Sign
By far the best story in the collection, the Yellow Sign is about a painter and his favorite nude model. As he is painting her one day, he glances down into the church courtyard outside his studio and sees the graveyard keeper, who reminds him of a maggot or a slug with his fat, squishy body and very pale, soft looking face.
The artist is appalled by the sight, and then notices that everything he paints is turning a sickly color of green.
He shows his model the graveyard man, and she is shocked to see that it is the same man that has been appearing in a reoccurring dream where the graveyard man is driving a hearse wagon beneath her window, and the artist is in the coffin.
The artist asks his doorman about the graveyard man and the doorman relates a story where he got so offended at the graveyard man that he punched him in the face. His hand sunk into his cold, dead face, and the graveyard man grabbed his hand. As the doorman pulled away, the graveyard man’s middle finger came off in his arm, and then wriggled into his flesh like a burrowing worm. Since then the graveyard man has seemed to have direct control over the doorman’s actions.
The next day the artist tells his model that he had the same dream as his model, only he is looking up at her from the coffin.
The model breaks down weeping and admits that she is in love with the artist.
Happy in their new relationship they both present one another with gifts. The model gives the artist an onyx clasp that she found with a strange, yellow symbol imprinted in it.
The artist notices a book he has never seen before on the top shelf of his bookshelf. He asks the model to retrieve it for him, and she says the title is “The King in Yellow.” Horrified, the artist tells her to leave it alone. The model assumes he is teasing, and grabs the book and runs from him.
When he finally finds her, she is curled up in horror in a corner. It is clear she has read the book. The artist sits down and reads it himself.
When he is finished, they discuss the book. They realize that the clasp is the Yellow Sign and that they are doomed.
The graveyard man enters the house, the doors rotting at his touch, and does something horrible to them that is not exactly clear. End of story.
The Play
The King in Yellow is a fictional play that ties the four stories together. The play was published world-wide and subsequently censored and forbidden in most countries for its disturbing effect on readers. The play is composed of two acts. The first act is described as “quite normal” while the second act is so disturbing that many who have read it go completely insane. Those who read the first act generally are unable to resist reading the second act.
The plot of the play is only very broadly hinted at. It involves at least three characters, Cassilda, Camilla, and “The Stranger,” who is probably The King in Yellow.
The book contains a few direct quotes from Act 1 scene 2 of the play. These are as follows:
Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath 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.
Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Indeed?
Cassilda: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
Stranger: I wear no mask.
Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2.
While the play is described as the height of art and the depth of depravity. While it does not contain anything overtly offensive, it is the sheer art of the writing that drives people mad. The Yellow Sign contains the following description of the play:
Oh the sin of writing such words,—words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis! Oh the wickedness, the hopeless damnation of a soul who could fascinate and paralyze human creatures with such words,—words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death!
The Yellow Sign
The Yellow Sign, described in The Repairer of Reputations and in The Yellow Sign is said to be a symbol that is not quite Arabic, not quite Chinese. It is the sigil of the King, and seems to give him direct control over whoever receives it. This is seen in The Repairer of Reputations when the narrator hands the yellow sign to a passerby who looks at it in shock and confusion, then puts it in his jacket and wanders off. It is also seen in “The Yellow Sign” when the artist and his model gain possession of the Yellow Sign and are then claimed by the graveyard man.
The King
The King in Yellow is only glimpsed once within the book, In the Court of the Dragon, where he opens his tattered robes to a different universe and says “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
He is described as wearing tattered yellow robes and to have a face that looks like a pallid mask. He appears to rule over an alien world or dimension, Carcosa, described as having twin suns, strange moons, and stars that burn black.
The King in Yellow appears to claim souls, and seems similar to the grim reaper or even Satan (given the heavy religious overtones in the stories).
Although later material would tie him into the Lovecraft universe and identify him with Hastur, in the actual book, The King is left mysterious and undefined. And frankly, that’s the best way.
