The King in Yellow

Description of book

The King in Yellow is a book of short stories named after a play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The book features highly esteemed weird stories and supernatural tales. Table of Contents: "The Repairer of Reputations" – A weird story of egotism and paranoia which carries the imagery of the book's title. "The Mask" – A dream story of art, love, and uncanny science. "In the Court of the Dragon" – A man is pursued by a sinister church organist who is after his soul. "The Yellow Sign" – An artist is troubled by a sinister churchyard watchman who resembles a coffin worm. "The Demoiselle d'Ys" – A ghost story. "The Prophets' Paradise" – A sequence of eerie prose poems that develop the style and theme of a quote from the fictional play The King in Yellow which introduces "The Mask". "The Street of the Four Winds" – An atmospheric tale of an artist in Paris who is drawn to a neighbor's room by a cat; the story ends with a macabre touch. "The Street of the First Shell" – A war story set in the Paris Siege of 1870. "The Street of Our Lady of the Fields" – Romantic American bohemians in Paris. "Rue Barrée" – Romantic American bohemians in Paris, with a discordant ending that playfully reflects some of the tone of the first story.