The King in Yellow

Robert W. Chambers' collection The King in Yellow is an unusual anthology -- the first four stories ("The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon", and "The Yellow Sign") are considered classics of horror, and some of the themes and characters have even been incorporated into H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. The remaining stories in the collection are unconnected to the first four and are French-influenced romances. I took the opportunity to read the first four stories (which are in the public domain, and hence, all over the Internet. The remainder of the collection will have to wait until I either come across it in a used bookstore, or until I exhaust much more reading material.)

Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Indeed?
Cassilda: Indeed, it's time. We have all 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 2d

"The Repairer of Reputations", the first and best-known story, is a subtle tour of the mind of a madman. Hilbert Castaigne is not a stable individual, and he knows it -- as he introduces himself, he acknowledges that he hasn't been the same since has fall from a horse four years earlier. He then proceeds to mention that while convalescing from his fall, he read The King in Yellow, a fictional play that is the common thread that links these stories. Castaigne says of the play: "although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in The King in Yellow, all felt that human nature could not bear the strain nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked." Prior to his accident, Castaigne had been a wealthy playboy and man-about-town; as the story unfolds, he's a recluse, keeping the company only of his cousin Louis, a soldier (in a very mid-19th century army), Hawberk, an armorer, and Mr. Wilde, an elderly eccentric who appears just as mad as Hildred.

Throughout the story, Hildred's companions often humor him -- while he is generally aware of it, and manages to turn the tables on his interlocutors at least twice, it's unclear if this actually happens, or only in his imagination. The mysterious Mr. Wilde is the eponymous repairer of reputations (he hangs out a shingle with that title at the halfway point of the story), and convinces Hildred that he has vast influence in society as a whole, with hundreds of members of the upper class in his sway. Additionally, Wilde holds a manuscript titled The Imperial Dynasty of America -- in it, Hildred is second in line to the throne, after his cousin Louis.

After poring over the manuscript again and again, Hildred confronts his cousin with two demands -- first, that he must give up his claim to the throne, with Louis does, laughing. The second demand is colder, in that Louis can't marry his fiancee, Hawberk's daughter. When Louis refuses, Hildred responds that it doesn't matter, he's hired an assassin. Louis and Hildred run to Hawberk's shop, where Hildred finds Mr. Wilde with his throat torn out by his feral cat. Without Wilde, Hildred will be unable to ascend the throne. As he mourns, he is placed in a straight-jacket by medical personnel, and led past a weeping Hawberk, his daughter, and Louis. It is unclear which of the events have occurred, and which have only occurred in Hildred's head.

Of the later stories, "The Mask" and "The Yellow Sign" feature The King in Yellow more prominently, while "In the Court of the Dragon" only mentions the play in passing (the unnamed narrator is troubled, because he's been reading it). Despite this, we never get much of a sense about what the play is about, other than a strange, otherworldly setting, and a vague sense of kinship with Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." I feel this is for the best, as often overtelling would make the play less ominous and more ridiculous. Other authors actually have written a play based on the fragments and clues left by Chambers, but since none of them shatter the human mind, what is the point?

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, The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2d

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow