Description:
The elusive, mysterious play 'The King in Yellow, ' weaves through several of the stories in this collection, which blends a variety of genres showcasing Chambers' vast literary talent.
Brief description: Robert William Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1865. He was educated as a professional artist, studying at École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893. Upon his return to New York, Chambers achieved early success as an illustrator, selling work to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines.For reasons not made clear, Chambers soon turned his focus to writing, publishing his first novel, In The Quarter, in 1894. Chambers followed up his novel with The King in Yellow in 1895. The King in Yellow's aura of the supernatural and stylistic narratives was highly influential with many writers in the early 20th century, including H.P. Lovecraft. Chambers occasionally returned to this territory in his collections The Maker of Moons, The Mystery of Choice, and The Tree of Heaven.Chambers had a successful writing career, publishing dozens of novels in a variety of genres, from romance, to military, to su- pernatural. His books were best-sellers and many were serialized in magazines. One of his novels, The Tracer of Lost Persons, was turned into a radio drama that lasted from 1934 to 1956.It is his journeys into the bizarre, the strange, and post-Gothic realms in the collections-often classified as Weird Fiction-that have had a lasting impression on several generations of writers, and was most recently the thematic inspiration for the television show True Detective.He died in 1933.