The King in Yellow
Few horror books have cast as long a shadow as this 1895 collection, whose opening stories orbit a cursed play that drives anyone who reads its second act toward despair or madness. The play itself, called The King in Yellow, is never shown in full, and Chambers wisely leaves its worst pages to the imagination. Recurring images, the Yellow Sign, the lost city of Carcosa, the tattered King, thread the early tales together and lend them a dreamlike menace. Later pieces drift toward romance and studies of artists in Paris, showing Chambers’s range. The book quietly shaped an entire lineage of cosmic horror, from Lovecraft onward. This free PDF and EPUB edition gathers all of it for new readers.
About the Author
Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933) was an American artist turned prolific author of romance and adventure fiction. He is remembered almost entirely for the early horror tales of The King in Yellow, whose influence on supernatural and cosmic-horror writing far outlasted his popular novels.
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Listen to The King in Yellow Audiobook Free
Listen to The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers free online. The full audiobook (7 hr 45 min, 17 chapters, read by Eva Staes) streams free on this page.
The King in Yellow (1895) is a public domain work.
| # | Chapter | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dedication Poem | 1:19 | |
| 2 | The Repairer of Reputations - Part one | 23:36 | |
| 3 | The Repairer of Reputations - Part two | 29:34 | |
| 4 | The Repairer of Reputations - Part three | 32:18 | |
| 5 | The Mask | 40:44 | |
| 6 | The Court of the Dragon | 22:21 | |
| 7 | The Yellow Sign | 44:31 | |
| 8 | The Demoiselle D'Ys | 35:19 | |
| 9 | The Prophet's Paradise | 7:26 | |
| 10 | The Street of the Four Winds | 15:18 | |
| 11 | The Street of the First Shell - Part one | 15:55 | |
| 12 | The Street of the First Shell - Part two | 30:06 | |
| 13 | The Street of the First Shell - Parts three and four | 31:45 | |
| 14 | The Street of Our Lady of the Fields - Parts one and two | 14:47 | |
| 15 | The Street of Our Lady of the Fields - Parts three and four | 44:05 | |
| 16 | The Street of Our Lady of the Fields - Parts five and six | 24:36 | |
| 17 | Rue Barrée | 51:17 |
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