The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895.[2] The book is named after a play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories.[3] The first half of the book features highly esteemed horror stories, and the book has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler, and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural.[3][4] There are ten stories, the first four of which ("The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon", and "The Yellow Sign") mention The King in Yellow, a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those who read it. "The Yellow Sign" inspired a film of the same name released in 2001.
The British first edition was published by Chatto & Windus in 1895 (316 pages).
Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.
Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers (1827–1911), a corporate and bankruptcy lawyer, and Caroline Smith Boughton (1842–1913). His parents met when his mother was twelve years old and William P. was interning with her father, Joseph Boughton, a prominent corporate lawyer. Eventually the two formed the law firm of Chambers and Boughton which continued to prosper even after Joseph's death in 1861. Robert Chambers's great-grandfather, William Chambers (birth unknown), a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, was married to Amelia Saunders (1765–1822), a great granddaughter of Tobias Saunders of Westerly, Rhode Island. The couple moved from Westerly to Greenfield, Massachusetts and then to Galway, New York, where their son, also William Chambers (1798–1874), was born. The second William graduated from Union College at the age of 18, and then went to a college in Boston, where he studied medicine. Upon graduating, he and his wife, Eliza P. Allen (1793–1880), a direct descendant of Roger Williams,[1] the founder of Providence, Rhode Island, were among the first settlers of Broadalbin, New York. His brother was the architect Walter Boughton Chambers.