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Rating: Robert W. Chambers is one of the giants of the fantastic, undeservedly buried and absolutely worth rediscovering: his exquisitely literary and aesthetic writing describes and evokes glimpses of an everyday reality that opens up onto disturbing cosmic abysses still today. His fame today is mainly due to the influence he had on H.P. Lovecraft—Chambers represents, along with Machen, one of the major sources of inspiration for the "recluse of Providence"—but his masterpiece book, The King in Yellow, deserves to be counted among the cornerstones of fantastic literature.
Born in Brooklyn in 1865, Chambers initially devoted himself to painting, going to Paris to study. The French capital had an enormous charm for the future writer: the pages he left us on Paris are still memorable today and transport the reader to the characteristic "bohemian" atmosphere of the Latin Quarter. The work of Chambers has almost always received a comforting response from both the public and critics until his death in 1933. A very prolific writer, he successfully explored, in addition to the fantastic genre, the social novel and especially the historical novel: in this field, he published numerous books on the Franco-Prussian war and the American Revolution.
Given the great talent he possessed, fans of the fantastic can only lament that he exhausted his black symbolic vein so early, although his choice was probably dictated by economic reasons. His first book—In the Quarter—was published in 1894, while The King in Yellow saw the light in 1895. The King in Yellow is still today his most famous novel: here all the "topoi" and symbols that we will find developed in "Lovecraftian" narrative are codified. In particular, the cursed tome that drives whoever reads it insane—precisely "The King in Yellow"—is the first in a series of "pseudo-biblia" in "weird" literature. Later, it will be joined by the infamous Necronomicon of H.P. Lovecraft.
But in The King in Yellow the constellation of the Hyades is also evoked, and an infernal geography is foreshadowed, which includes the mysterious city of Carcosa, the lake of Hali, and the enigmatic Hastur, all inventions that lay the foundations and codify the themes of what would be the subsequent weird-tale. Some of these suggestive names owe their origins to the pen of Ambrose Bierce, another famous literary cartographer of the unknown.
In reality, among the ten tales included in The King in Yellow, only the first four belong to the true cycle: "The Repairer of Reputations," "The Mask," "In the Court of the Dragon," and "The Yellow Sign." These are jewels of pure fantasy, gems that shine with a timeless beauty and that maintain all their bizarre and decadent charm even today, also thanks to the personal literary touch of Chambers, who certainly owes something to his experience in the visual arts. "The Repairer of Reputations" is a very original science fiction story set in New York in 1920 and not without irony, while "The Yellow Sign" is undoubtedly one of the most effective and frightening supernatural stories ever written: the enigmatic symbol of the sign is revealed to be the key to accessing a hidden and terrifying reality. The other stories are also of the highest level, including "The Démoiselle d'Y," which is based on a Breton legend, and are characterized by a genuine romantic atmosphere. Symbols and masks populate the "Chambersian" universe and reveal an approach to the fantastic of a decadent and symbolic nature that makes Chambers a sort of symbolist of the horror tale.
In Italy, after the publication by Fanucci of the cycle of The King in Yellow in the '70s, Chambers experienced the editorial removal that hit the most genuine and stimulating fantastic. Therefore, the work of Edizioni Hypnos is commendable and of fundamental importance—a newly founded publishing house that aims to recover forgotten fantastic literature—that has reprinted The King in Yellow, enriched with two other fantastic stories. This is thus only the beginning of a rediscovery project of many fundamental fantastic authors, including Jean Ray (whose collection The Great Nocturnal and The Whisky Tales has been published): another 3 volumes of Robert W. Chambers are expected in the future, including "The Mystery of Choice" has already been published. The volume can be purchased directly on the Edizioni Hypnos website (http://www.edizionihypnos.com/).
Robert Chambers: The King in Yellow and Other Stories, edited by Giuseppe Lippi and Andrea Vaccaro (Edizioni Hypnos – 2010, 440 pages, €24.90; past editions: Fanucci – Rome – 1975 – 1989)
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