The King in Yellow

The Multiple Meanings of the Title

The title 'The King in Yellow' applies to several different things

1) A book of short stories by Robert W Chambers

2) A play, assumed to be fictional by most readers, referred to in several of Chambers' stories

3) An ill-defined supernatural entity that appears in the play and whose influence apparently bleeds through to the world of the stories

4) A real French play of which Talbot Estus claims to own a copy. Its exact contents, or source are as yet unclear to the investigators, but it appears to predate Chambers' work.

The Book

The King in Yellow - a collection of short stories by Robert W Chambers.

The most notable thing about the book is that Chambers wrote nothing remotely like it before or since. Chambers himself is still living, and is a successful writer of banal romances.

The Play

Those characters who read the play The King in Yellow go mad or meet horrible dooms. As if to protect his own readers, Chambers quotes only brief passages of the play, like the extract from "Cassilda's Song... Act I, Scene 2", that introduces the first story in the collection:

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.

Such quotes only come the first act, allowing Chambers to hint that the second act is far more disturbing: "The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterward with more awful effect."

Otherwise, Chambers gives only scattered hints of the contents of the play, as in this extract from "The Repairer of Reputations":

He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the lake of Hali. "The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever," he muttered, but I do not believe Vance heard him. Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, he began the wonderful story of the Last King.

A similar passage occurs in "The Yellow Sign", after the two protagonists read The King in Yellow:

Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fog-wrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.

The Entity

The King in Yellow appears as a tall figure in tattered yellow robes, abearing a smoking brand. He is apparently also known as 'The Living God' or 'the Last King'.

The King in Yellow dwells in Carcosa and is feared by the inhabitants of Yhtill and Alar.

In the play Carcosa, or The Queen and the Stranger, The Stranger, also known as 'The Phantom of Truth' attempted to resist the King by the use of the 'Pallid Mask'. It seems this was unsuccessful.

The King in Yellow is played by Talbot Estus

The Yellow Sign

The Yellow Sign seems to be associated with the King in some way.