Necronomicon

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This article is about a fictional book. For other uses, see Necronomicon (disambiguation).

Statue of H. P. Lovecraft, the author who created the Necronomicon as a fictional grimoire and featured it in many of his stories

The Necronomicon, also referred to as the Book of the Dead, or under a purported original Arabic title of Kitab al-Azif, is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound",[1] written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City".[2] Among other things, the work contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them.

Other authors such as

card catalog of the Yale University Library.[3]

Capitalizing on the notoriety of the fictional volume, real-life publishers have printed many books entitled Necronomicon since Lovecraft's death.

Origin and etymology

How Lovecraft conceived the name Necronomicon is not clear—Lovecraft said that the title came to him in a dream.[4] Although some have suggested that Lovecraft was influenced primarily by Robert W. Chambers' collection of short stories The King in Yellow, which centers on a mysterious and disturbing play in book form, Lovecraft is not believed to have read that work until 1927.[5]

Donald R. Burleson has argued that the idea for the book was derived from

Gothic literature.[6]

Lovecraft wrote[7] that the title, as translated from the Greek language, meant "an image of the law of the dead", compounded respectively from νεκρός nekros "dead", νόμος nomos "law", and εἰκών eikon "image".[8] Robert M. Price notes that the title has been variously translated by others as "Book of the names of the dead", "Book of the laws of the dead", "Book of dead names" and "Knower of the laws of the dead".[citation needed] S. T. Joshi states that Lovecraft's own etymology is "almost entirely unsound. The last portion of it is particularly erroneous, since -ikon is nothing more than a neuter adjectival suffix and has nothing to do with eikõn (image)." Joshi translates the title as "Book considering (or classifying) the dead".[9]

Lovecraft was often asked about the veracity of the Necronomicon, and always answered that it was completely his invention. In a letter to Willis Conover, Lovecraft elaborated upon his typical answer:

Now about the "terrible and forbidden books"—I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I invented these names myself.

Book of Eibon is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith's. Robert E. Howard is responsible for Friedrich von Junzt and his Unaussprechlichen Kulten.... As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes—in all truth they don't amount to much. That is why it's more fun to invent mythical works like the Necronomicon and Book of Eibon.[4]

Reinforcing the book's fictionalization, the name of the book's supposed author, Abdul Alhazred, is not even a grammatically correct Arabic name. What is transliterated as "Abdul" in English is actually a noun in the nominative form ʿabdu (عَبْدُ, "servant") and the definite article al- (الـ) and amounts to "servant of the" with the article actually being part of the second noun in the construct, which in this case is supposed to be "Alhazred" (traditional Arabic names do not follow the modern first name-surname format). But "Alhazred", even if considered as a corruption of al-ḥaḍrāt (حَضْرَات, "the presences") though it seems unlikely, itself is a definite noun (i.e., a noun prefixed by the definite article) and thus "Abdul Alhazred" could not possibly be a real Arabic name.[10] Lovecraft first used the name "Abdul Alhazred" as a pseudonym he gave himself as a five-year-old,[11] and very likely mistook "Abdul" to be a first name while inventing "Alhazred" as an Arabic-sounding surname.

Fictional history

First page of the manuscript of History of the Necronomicon by Lovecraft

In 1927, Lovecraft wrote a brief

pseudo-history of the Necronomicon. It was published in 1938, after his death, as "History of the Necronomicon". According to this account, the book was originally called Al Azif, an Arabic word that Lovecraft defined as "that nocturnal sound (made by insects) supposed to be the howling of demons", drawing on a footnote by Rev. Samuel Henley in Henley's translation of Vathek.[12] Henley, commenting upon a passage which he translated as "those nocturnal insects which presage evil", alluded to the diabolic legend of Beelzebub, "Lord of the Flies" and to Psalm 91:5, which in some 16th century English Bibles (such as Myles Coverdale's 1535 translation) describes "bugges by night" where later translations render "terror by night".[13] One Arabic/English dictionary translates `Azīf (عزيف) as "whistling (of the wind); weird sound or noise".[14] Gabriel Oussani defined it as "the eerie sound of the jinn in the wilderness".[15] The tradition of `azif al jinn (عزيف الجن) is linked to the phenomenon of "singing sand".[16]

In the "History", Alhazred is said to have been a "half-crazed Arab" who worshipped the Lovecraftian entities

Arabia. In his last years, he lived in Damascus, where he wrote Al Azif before his sudden and mysterious death in 738, which, according to Ibn Khallikan, happened when he was "seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses". In subsequent years, Lovecraft wrote, the Azif "gained considerable, though surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age." In 950, it was translated into Greek and given the title Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas, a fictional scholar from Constantinople. This version "impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts" before being "suppressed and burnt" in 1050 by Patriarch Michael (a historical figure who died in 1059).[17]

After this attempted suppression, the work was "only heard of furtively" until it was translated from Greek into

John Dee (1527 – c. 1609) allegedly translated the book—presumably into English—but Lovecraft wrote that this version was never printed and only fragments survive.[17]

According to Lovecraft, the Arabic version of Al Azif had already disappeared by the time the Greek version was banned in 1050, though he cites "a vague account of a secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the current [20th] century" that "later perished in fire". The Greek version, he writes, has not been reported "since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692", an apparent reference to the Salem witch trials. (In the story "The Diary of Alonzo Typer", the character Alonzo Typer finds a Greek copy.) According to "History of the Necronomicon" the very act of studying the text is inherently dangerous, as those who attempt to master its arcane knowledge generally meet terrible ends.[17]

Appearance and contents

"That is not dead which can eternal lie" redirects here. For the book by Darrell Schweitzer, see That Is Not Dead.

The Necronomicon is mentioned in a number of Lovecraft's short stories and in his novellas At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. However, despite frequent references to the book, Lovecraft was very sparing of details about its appearance and contents. He once wrote that "if anyone were to try to write the Necronomicon, it would disappoint all those who have shuddered at cryptic references to it."[18]

In "The Nameless City" (1921), a rhyming couplet that appears at two points in the story is ascribed to Abdul Alhazred:

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.[19]

The same couplet appears in "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928), where it is identified as a quotation from the Necronomicon. This "much-discussed" couplet, as Lovecraft calls it in the latter story, has also been quoted in works by other authors, including Brian Lumley's The Burrowers Beneath, which adds a long paragraph preceding the couplet.

In his story "History of the Necronomicon", Lovecraft states that it is rumored that artist R. U. Pickman (from his story "Pickman's Model") owned a Greek translation of the text, but it vanished along with the artist in early 1926.

The Necronomicon is undoubtedly a substantial text, as indicated by its description in "

Miskatonic University
's library to consult the "unabridged" version of the Necronomicon for a spell that would have appeared on the 751st page of his own inherited, but defective, Dee edition. The Necronomicon passage in question states:

Nor is it to be thought...that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The

Yog-Sothoth
is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.

The Necronomicon's appearance and physical dimensions are not clearly stated in Lovecraft's work. Other than the obvious

Joseph Curwen
's bookshelf and discovers to his disquiet that it is actually the Necronomicon.

Many commercially available versions of the book fail to include any of the contents that Lovecraft describes. The Simon Necronomicon in particular has been criticized for this.[20]

Locations

According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon", copies of the original Necronomicon were held by only five institutions worldwide:

The Miskatonic University also holds the Latin translation by Olaus Wormius, printed in Spain in the 17th century.

Other copies, Lovecraft wrote, were kept by private individuals. Joseph Curwen, as noted, had a copy in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1941). A version is held in

The Nameless City" is unknown; a version is read by the protagonist in "The Hound" (1924
).

Hoaxes and alleged translations

A fan-created prop representing the Necronomicon (2004)

Although Lovecraft insisted that the book was pure invention (and other writers invented passages from the book for their own works), there are accounts of some people actually believing the Necronomicon to be a real book. Lovecraft himself sometimes received letters from fans inquiring about the Necronomicon's authenticity.

A. Alhazred', ostensibly the book's author and original owner). The Vatican also receives requests for this book from those who believe the Vatican Library holds a copy.[21]

In 1973, Owlswick Press issued an edition of the Necronomicon written in an indecipherable, apparently fictional language known as "Duriac".[22] This was a limited edition of 348. The book contains a brief introduction by L. Sprague de Camp.

The line between fact and fiction was further blurred in the late 1970s when a book purporting to be a translation of "the real" Necronomicon was published. This book, by the pseudonymous "Simon", had little connection to the fictional

Sumerian mythology. It was later dubbed the "Simon Necronomicon".[23] Going into trade paperback in 1980 it has never been out of print and has sold 800,000 copies by 2006 making it the most popular Necronomicon to date. Despite its contents, the book's marketing focused heavily on the Lovecraft connection and made sensational claims for the book's magical power. The blurb states it was "potentially, the most dangerous Black Book known to the Western World". Three additional volumes have since been published — The Necronomicon Spellbook, a book of pathworkings with the 50 names of Marduk; Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon, a history of the book itself and of the late 1970s New York occult scene; and The Gates of the Necronomicon, instructions on pathworking with the Simon Necronomicon.[citation needed
]

A hoax version of the Necronomicon, edited by George Hay, appeared in

Dr. John Dee. The resulting "translation" was in fact written by occultist Robert Turner, but it was far truer to the Lovecraftian version than the Simon text and even incorporated quotations from Lovecraft's stories in its passages.[23] Wilson also wrote a story, "The Return of the Lloigor", in which the Voynich manuscript turns out to be a copy of the Necronomicon.[24]

With the success of the Simon Necronomicon the controversy surrounding the actual existence of the Necronomicon was such that a detailed book, The Necronomicon Files, was published in 1998 attempting to prove once and for all the book was pure fiction. It covered the well-known Necronomicons in depth, especially the Simon one, along with a number of more obscure ones. It was reprinted and expanded in 2003.[25]

In 2004, Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred, by Canadian occultist Donald Tyson, was published by Llewellyn Worldwide. The Tyson Necronomicon is generally thought[who?] to be closer to Lovecraft's vision than other published versions.[citation needed] Donald Tyson has clearly stated that the Necronomicon is fictional, but that has not prevented his book from being the center of some controversy.[26] Tyson has since published Alhazred, a novelization of the life of the Necronomicon's author.

ritual magic or in dreams. Grant's ideas on Lovecraft were featured heavily in the introduction to the Simon Necronomicon and also have been backed by Tyson.[27]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ "The Hound", by H. P. Lovecraft Published February 1924 in "Weird Tales". YankeeClassic.com. Retrieved on January 31, 2009
  2. ^ Though it has been argued that an unnamed copy of the Necronomicon appears in the 1919 story "The Statement of Randolph Carter", S. T. Joshi points out that the text in question was "written in characters whose like (narrator Randolph Carter) never saw elsewhere"—which would not describe any known edition of the Necronomicon, including the one in Arabic, a language Carter was familiar with. S. T. Joshi, "Afterword", History of the Necronomicon, Necronomicon Press.
  3. ISBN 0-87054-076-9
    .
  4. ^ a b "Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Letters". www.hplovecraft.com. Donovan K. Loucks. April 13, 2004.
  5. ^ Joshi & Schultz, "Chambers, Robert William", An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 38
  6. ^ Joshi, "Afterword".
  7. ^ H. P. Lovecraft: Selected Letters V, 418
  8. Perseus Project
    .
  9. ^ Joshi, S.T. The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos (Mythos Books, 2008) pp. 34-35.
  10. ^ Petersen, Sandy & Lynn Willis. Call of Cthulhu, p. 189.
  11. ISBN 1780999070
  12. ISBN 0141182342
    .
  13. ^ William Beckford (1868). Samuel Henley (ed.). Vathek; An Arabian Tale. William Tegg. p. 144.
  14. ISBN 3447020024
    .
  15. ^ Oussani, Gabriel (1906–1907). "The XIVth Chapter of Genesis". The New York Review. II: 217.
  16. ISBN 978-3447061124
    .
  17. ^ a b c Lovecraft, H. P. (August 20, 2009). "The History of the Necronomicon". www.hplovecraft.com. Donovan K. Loucks. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  18. ^ Letter to Jim Blish and William Miller, Jr., quoted in Joshi, "Afterword".
  19. ^ ""The Nameless City" by H. P. Lovecraft". www.hplovecraft.com. Donovan K. Loucks. August 20, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  20. ^ The Simon Necronomicon, a review.
  21. Eternal Word Television Network. Retrieved January 24, 2020. Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano
    Weekly Edition in English, 7 February 2007, page 8
  22. ^ "Al Azif: The Necronomicon, a Review (Owlswick/Wildside Edition)" Archived June 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  23. ^
    ISSN 0899-8361. Archived from the original
    on October 26, 2009 – via Yahoo! GeoCities.
  24. OCLC 2507340
    .
  25. ISBN 9781578632695
  26. ^ "Keys to Power beyond Reckoning: Mysteries of the Tyson Necronomicon". February 5, 2009. Archived from the original on February 5, 2009.
  27. ISBN 9781578632695

Bibliography

Primary sources
Secondary sources

Further reading

  • Laycock, Joseph P. “How the Necronomicon Became Real: The Ecology of a Legend.” The Paranormal and Popular Culture. 1st ed. Routledge, 2019. 184–197.

External links

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