i read a different edition to this (i can't find it) which only contained the first four stories from the original king in yellow collection, the ones actually pertaining to the king in yellow, so i'm not rating this. they were good but somewhat underwhelming to my expectations - the main thing i found interesting was that the repairer of reputations is distinctly science fiction (or rather written in that mode) and that the romance elements of two of them are much stronger than i would expect coming to them without any knowledge of chambers' prior work! skimming the rest of the collection & now knowing it's mostly romances that makes a lot of sense.

1st book of 2023 for me and started off with a classic in the Weird Fiction genre. The King in Yellow heavily influenced the nature of H.P. Lovecraft and other horror writers; this can especially be seen in the first four short stories in the collection. These stories were wonderfully weird, tense, and unsettling; however, there lies the problem, the collection doesn’t end after those four stories. The remaining works range from romance to historical fiction and are tremendously bland. The only through thread for these final stories are the setting (Paris) and the occupation of some of the main characters (artists). With this in mind, The King in Yellow receives 3

An interesting collection of stories of horror, fantasy, etc. from an early 20th century writer who has mostly been forgotten. I got the book because of its connection to the first season of the TV series "True Detective", but I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the other stories as well.

This is a collection of short stories and I love short stories of classical horror. The first few stories belong to a shared mythology that is centered around The King in Yellow and they were all a joy to read. The last few stories felt out of place because they were outside of the cycle that had been established in the beginning. They are all well written but it was only the King in Yellow stories that were of interest to me.

The book has collected short stories that are intertwined, not just those related with the king in yellow, though I found those most interesting and even spooky. Other stories were also connected, like the last three in the book, featured the same central character, bit I can't say they held my attention as well.

I liked this a lot but I have a sneaking suspicion that I missed something important, so I'm going to have to read it again.

My four-star rating applies strictly to the first five stories in this volume; the remaining stories break the mold set by the first quintet and did pretty much nothing for me.

The first five, though, I enjoyed a lot. The first four stories all are stand-alone tales linked by the device of a fictional play called "The King in a Yellow," a play reputed to drive anyone who reads it quite mad. "The Repairer of Reputations," "The Mask," "On The Court Of The Dragon" and "The Yellow Sign" make up the "King in Yellow" cycle, and can be considered sort of prototypical Cthulhu Mythos material -- and Lovecraft did, indeed, read these stories. The stories offer an oblique glimpse into another, supernatural world, which may exist only in the minds of those who read the book. Good stuff, and of special interest to Lovecraft fans.

The fifth story, "The Demoiselle D'Ys," is simply a ghost story, unconnected with the "King" material -- although it easily could have been worked into that framework.

All in all, a breezy read. Call it Lovecraft, without the stilted prose.

Eh. I'm unsure how to rate this series of short stories. It opens strongly with a compelling story that I would give a 4/5, but the following romances were.... Eh.