Showing results by author "Robert W. Chambers" in All Categories

A short story from "The King in Yellow", The story is set in New York City in the year 1920, 25 years after the story's publication. It is told from the view of Hildred Castaigne, a young man whose personality changes drastically following a head injury sustained by falling from his horse. He is subsequently committed to an asylum for treatment of insanity by Dr. Archer. Due to his accident, Hildred is a prime example of an unreliable narrator.

In the heart of Paris, amidst the bohemian world of artists and dreamers, a chilling tale of mystery and the macabre unfolds. Louis De Cressac, a gifted painter, lives a life of solitude and obsession, haunted by a dark legacy tied to the sinister Black King. When his friend, Jack Scott, visits, he is drawn into a world where art and the supernatural intertwine in terrifying ways.

During World War I, an American secret service agent, Evelyn Erith, opens and deciphers a coded letter. It says the Germans believe that Kay MacKay, an American concentration camp escapee, knows The Great Secret. And that MacKay must be eliminated. Erith finds McKay, saves him from German agents and convinces him to join U.S. Intelligence. Together they venture undercover into the Swiss Alps to discover and expose The Great Secret. The future of Europe depends on it!

The King in Yellow is a book of 10 classic short stories about the supernatural. The first four mention "The King in Yellow", a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those exposed to it. The tales have a macabre undertone, focusing on characters that are inhabitants of the demi-monde.

Hildred Castaigne is a young man who lives in New York City whose life changes drastically after he falls from his horse and injures his head. Castaigne gets unjustly confined to a mental institution, where Dr. Archer treats him. However, the doctor soon realizes, that this is a mistake and the young man’s condition is not as bad as he was told. During Hildred’s treatment, the United States have prospered and improved their infrastructure, a new aristocratic elite has been formed and suicide has been legalized.

What exactly lies beyond the treacherous and previously impassable Canadian glacier? From the collection In Search of the Unknown comes a chilling tale of the things nature can do when nobody’s watching.

This chilling collection includes: "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes" by Henry James, "The Shadow" by E. Nesbit, "Monsieur Anastasius" by Dinah Maria Mulock, "John Granger" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and more.

The King in Yellow is a collection of 10 short stories on supernatural subjects first published 1895. The title refers to a mysterious play which causes derangement in the minds of those who read or see it, and which is mentioned in the first four stories.

While taking a break from his latest painting, an artist casually stands at his window, looking at the street below. Much to his horror he sees a hideously disfigured man, a man whose features draw a repulsive shudder - the artist recognizes him from a nightmare foretelling his own death.

Classic Tales of Terror collects two classic chillers of the supernatural. "The Cats of Ulthar" tells of an elderly couple with a penchant for animal cruelty. They kill the pet of an orphan and the animals retaliate with a terrible vengeance. In "The Yellow Sign", an artist encounters a horribly disfigured man who exudes a terrible aura of unspeakable evil.

"Oh, thou who burn'st in heart for those who burn In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn; How long be crying - 'Mercy on them.' God! Why, who art thou to teach and He to learn?" In the Church of St. Barnabé vespers were over; the clergy left the altar; the little choir-boys flocked across the chancel and settled in the stalls. A Suisse in rich uniform marched down the south aisle, sounding his staff at every fourth step on the stone pavement; behind him came that eloquent preacher and good man, Monseigneur C-----.

It is the turn of the last century, and Alaska is a mysterious wilderness. At the suggestion of several hundred thousand ladies desiring to revel and possibly riot in the saturnalia of equal franchise, the unnamed lakes in that vast and little known region in Alaska bounded by the Ylanqui River and the Thunder Mountains were now being inexorably named after women.

In this dark story by Robert W. Chambers we are introduced to a detective, who is tasked to uncover a hoax in the Pacific Northwest. There he investigates the possible existence of a terrible porpoise-skinned humanoid with an insatiable hunger for human females. If you like reading dark and weird stories, then "The Harbor Master" from 1904 is the right one for you. Do not hesitate to embark on this journey and solve the mystery of the porpoise-skinned humanoid. B. J.

A short story by Robert W Chambers that appeared in the collection The King in Yellow, this vignette starts with a stray cat wandering into the flat of an artist in Paris, that eventually leads him to a love he lost in another life.

"The Yellow Sign" is considered to be Robert Chambers’ horror masterpiece. He introduces us to Mr. Scott, an artist living in New York City. One day, Scott sees an overweight young man, who looks like a lawn grub to him. The artist’s is working on a painting of a girl named Tessie. When the girl falls ill, Scott tries to cure her, so he can finish his work as fast as possible. However, Tessie’s condition gets worse and she starts having very strange dreams.

From The King in Yellow, this tale narrated by Mark Alexander begins: "The street is not fashionable, neither is it shabby. It is a pariah among streets - a street without a Quarter. It is generally understood to lie outside the pale of the aristocratic Avenue de l'Observatoire. The students of the Montparnasse Quarter consider it swell and will have none of it. The Latin Quarter, from the Luxembourg, its northern frontier, sneers at its respectability and regards with disfavour the correctly costumed students who haunt it. Few strangers go into it."

"The Profit’s Paradise" is a story from The King in Yellow narrated by Mark Turetsky, a collection of eight dreamlike poems by Robert W Chambers.

This short story from The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers, skilfully narrated by Mark Turetsky, concerns an artist, Severn, who lives alone in the Latin Quarter of Paris who befriends a stray cat. Not an ordinary cat, but a pampered cat with a mysterious and lovely owner.

From The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, an American gets lost whilst hunting in Brittany and encounters The Demoiselle D'Ys and is invited back to the castle where she lives. While the two become close, it is clear to the listener that this castle and those who live in it are strangers to the world the American recognises, and he returns to the world he knew, after a sudden attack by a snake.

Robert W. Chanbers' The King in Yellow, a collection of short stories, is considered one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction. Within the collection is "The Prophets' Paradise," a dream-like narrative of prose and poetry. Featuring personifications of Love and Truth, the story's structure has a palindrome-like quality with internal repetition. Romantic in tone and ambiguous in theme, "The Prophets' Paradise" is one of Chambers' more experimental pieces.