The King in Yellow

Robert W. Chambers

Dec 2016 · Author's Republic · Narrated by Multiple Narrators

About this audiobook

Robert William Chambers was an American artist and fiction writer best known for his book entitled The King in Yellow, a collection of short stories. With one foot in the gothic horror genre and the other in early modern horror, The King in Yellow also touches on fantasy, mystery, war, mythology, and science fiction. The book had a profound influence on the work of Lovecraft and other similar writers of the early 20th Century. Unlike other authors of the past, Chambers was very successful in his lifetime, and The King in Yellow has seen brought back to the bestseller lists because of its tie with HBO’s TV show True Detective.

Ratings and reviews

The King in Yellow is a haunting collection of interconnected short stories that explore themes of madness, despair, and the supernatural. This enigmatic and atmospheric work is brought to life in a gripping audio rendition that captures the eerie beauty and chilling horror of Chambers' visionary tales.

I’d like to go back and read all the plays of William Shakespeare, perhaps one a month if that works out. I hadn’t read a Shakespeare play since 1959, 50 years ago! But I had read nearly all of them in college. I wanted to go back, start with something not too serious or challenging, and work my way through the whole corpus. Thus I began with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. At this time I have no idea how the project will go, nor if it will actually lead me through the entire corpus of Shakespeare’s plays. However, I will keep a separate page listing each play I’ve read with links to any comments I would make of that particular play This is the fifth play I’ve read in my return to Shakespeare after so many years, and it my favorite so far. I found it’s several interwoven plots to be fascinating and well done. Shakespeare’s psychological insight into the human character is impressive and the passion involved grabbed me right away. I didn’t find as many “quotable” lines in this play as some others, but I did have my favorites, a couple I cite below. Ironically the main character is not Antonio, the merchant of Venice. Rather, it is Shylock, the Jewish money lender. While I think there is no way one would consider Shylock a nice fellow. I came away believing that he was more wronged than anyone in the play whom he harmed. He is presented as a nasty and greedy money lender. No doubt that portrait played well in a time of rampant anti-Semitism, but I came away with great sympathy for him. Even Antonio, the merchant, is just horrible in his judgment of Shylock, much more based on his race and religion than his money-lending practices.

Fans of horror fiction will delight in the eerie atmosphere and chilling imagery of "The King in Yellow," which offers a masterclass in psychological terror and supernatural suspense.