Robert W. Chambers

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.

• I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with its beautiful stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King In Yellow.
  • The King in Yellow (1895)

• To come is easy and takes hours; to go is different—and may take centuries.
  • The King in Yellow (1895)

• The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts.
  • The King in Yellow (1895)

• Come and see my rose-coloured bath full of death!
  • The King in Yellow (1895)

• Strange is the night where black stars rise,
  And strange moons circle through the skies,
  But stranger still is
    Lost Carcosa. ...
  Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
  Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
  Shall dry and die in
    Lost Carcosa.
  • "Cassilda's Song", sts. 2, 4 in The King in Yellow (1895), The Play, act 1, sc. 2

• It is well to avoid actually recognized myths such as vampirism, reincarnation, etc., and invent one’s own obscure violations of cosmic law. What common myth, for example, does Blackwood use in "The Willows"? Or Chambers in "The Yellow Sign" ? Or Hodgson in The House on the Borderland? These writers create a sort of distinctive awe of their own and manage to say something fresh despite all that has been said before.
  • H. P. Lovecraft, Letter to Duane Rimel (September 28, 1935), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 198