The King in Yellow is a short story collection by American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895. The British first edition was published by Chatto & Windus in 1895 (316 pages).
The book contains nine short stories and a sequence of poems; while the first stories belong to the genres of supernatural horror and weird fiction, The King in Yellow progressively transitions towards a more light-hearted tone, ending with romantic stories devoid of horror or supernatural elements. The horror stories are highly esteemed, and it has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler, S. T. Joshi, and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural. Lin Carter called it "an absolute masterpiece, probably the single greatest book of weird fantasy written in this country between the death of Poe and the rise of Lovecraft", and it was an influence on Lovecraft himself.
The book is named for the eponymous play within the stories that recurs as a motif through the first four stories, a forbidden play that induces madness in those who read it.
The first four stories are loosely connected by three main devices:
These stories are macabre in tone, centering, in keeping with the other tales, on characters who are often artists or decadents, inhabitants of the demi-monde.
The first and fourth stories, "The Repairer of Reputations" and "The Yellow Sign", are set in an imagined future 1920s America, whereas the second and third stories, "The Mask" and "In the Court of the Dragon", are set in Paris. These stories are haunted by the theme: "Have you found the Yellow Sign?"
The macabre character gradually fades away during the remaining stories, and the last three are written in the romantic fiction style common to Chambers's later work. They are all linked to the preceding stories by their Parisian setting and their artistic protagonists. The stories in the book are:
Chambers borrowed the names Carcosa, Hali and Hastur from Ambrose Bierce: specifically, his short stories "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" and "Haïta the Shepherd". There is no strong indication that Chambers was influenced beyond liking the names. For example, Hastur is a god of shepherds in "Haïta the Shepherd", but is implicitly a location in "The Repairer of Reputations", listed alongside the Hyades and Aldebaran.
Brian Stableford has pointed out that the story "The Demoiselle d'Ys" was influenced by the stories of Théophile Gautier, such as "Arria Marcella" (1852); both Gautier and Chambers's stories feature a love affair enabled by a supernatural time slip.
H. P. Lovecraft read The King in Yellow in early 1927 and included passing references to various things and places from the book, such as the Lake of Hali and the Yellow Sign, in "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931).
The first season of True Detective, a 2014 American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, references a figure called "the Yellow King". Allusions to The King in Yellow can be observed in the show's dark philosophy, its recurring use of "Carcosa" and "The Yellow King" as motifs throughout the series, and its symbolic use of yellow as a thematic signature that signifies insanity and decadence. The book is also a major source of inspiration for the video game Signalis.