History of the Necronomicon

A HISTORY OF THE NECRONOMICON
by H.P. Lovecraft

with supplementary information
by Donovan K. Loucks, Dan Clore, and Kendrick K. Chua

2nd Edition
(K)2000 All Rights Reversed

Tap here for miscellaneous publication information.

History of the Necronomicon
by H.P. Lovecraft

Contents

The Article
   Chronology
   Letter to C.A.Smith
   Letter to J.Blish and Wm.Miller

The Truth about the Necronomicon
   Quotes from HPL's stories
   Quotes from HPL's letters
   Final Thoughts

Fake Necronomicons
   The DeCamp-Scithers N.
   The Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford N.
   The Simon N.
   The Gregorius N.
   The Quine N.
   The Ripel N.
   The Perez-Vigo N.
   The Lin Carter N.
   The H.R. Giger N.
   The Necronomicon Project.

Necronomicon Glossary
   Abdul Alhazred
   The King in Yellow
   Aleister Crowley
   John Dee
   Ebn Khallikan
   Ibn Schacabao
   Irem, the City of Pillars
   (The Patriarch) Michael
   Theodorus Philetas
   The Voynich Manuscript
   Olaus Wormius

About the Author

"History of the Necronomicon", by H.P. Lovecraft, Original version (corrected) written in 1927 with 1993 annotation From Kendrick Kerwin Chua's Necronomicon FAQ and further annotation by Dan Clore ([email protected])

Note: The original Dan Clore version substituted the corrected text for the older, corrupt text used in the FAQ. Ed.

There has been some difficulty over the date of this essay. Most give the date as 1936, following the Laney-Evans (1943) bibliography entry for the pamphlet version produced by the Rebel Press. This date, as can easily be ascertained from the fact that this was a "Limited Memorial Edition", is spurious (Lovecraft died in 1937); in fact, it dates to 1938. The correct date of 1927 comes from the final draft of the essay, which appears on a letter addressed to Clark Ashton Smith ("To the Curator of the Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, with the Concoctor's[?] Comments"). The letter is dated April 27, 1927 and was apparently kept by Lovecraft to circulate as needed.

History of the Necronomicon
by H.P. Lovecraft

Original title Al Azif -- "azif" being the word used by Arabs to designate that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos'd to be the howling of daemons.

Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sana�, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia -- the Roba el Khaliyeh or "Empty Space" of the ancients -- and "Dahna" or "Crimson" desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen fabulous Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind.fn He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown entities whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.09

In A.D. 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho' surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age, was secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople under the title Necronomicon.10 For a century it impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch Michael. After this it is only heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice -- once in the fifteenth century in black-letter (evidently in Germany) and once in the seventeenth (prob. Spanish) -- both editions being without identifying marks, and located as to time and place by internal typographical evidence only.11 The work both Latin and Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, shortly after its Latin translation, which called attention to it.12 The Arabic original was lost as early as Wormius' time, as indicated by his prefatory note;fn and no sight of the Greek copy -- which was printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550 -- has been reported since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692.13 An English translation made by Dr. Dee was never printed, and exists only in fragments recovered from the original manuscript.14 Of the Latin texts now existing one (15th cent.) is known to be in the British Museum under lock and key, while another (17th cent.) is in the Biblioth�que Nationale at Paris. A seventeenth-century edition is in the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the library of Miskatonic University at Arkham. Also in the library of the University of Buenos Ayres.15 Numerous other copies probably exist in secret, and a fifteenth-century one is persistently rumoured to form part of the collection of a celebrated American millionaire. A still vaguer rumour credits the preservation of a sixteenth-century Greek text in the Salem family of Pickman; but if it was so preserved, it vanished with the artist R.U. Pickman, who disappeared early in 1926. The book is rigidly suppressed by the authorities of most countries, and by all branches of organised ecclesiasticism. Reading leads to terrible consequences. It was from rumours of this book (of which relatively few of the general public know) that R.W. Chambers is said to have derived the idea of his early novel The King in Yellow.16

Chronology

Al Azif written circa 730 A.D. at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred

Tr. to Greek 950 A.D. as Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas

Burnt by Patriarch Michael 1050 (i.e., Greek text). Arabic text now lost.

Olaus translates Gr. to Latin 1228

1232 Latin ed. (and Gr.) suppr. by Pope Gregory IX

14.. Black-letter printed edition (Germany)

15.. Gr. text printed in Italy

16.. Spanish reprint of Latin text

This should be supplemented with a letter written to Clark Ashton Smith for November 27, 1927:

I have had no chance to produce new material this autumn, but have been classifying notes & synopses in preparation for some monstrous tales later on. In particular I have drawn up some data on the celebrated & unmentionable Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred! It seems that this shocking blasphemy was produced by a native of Sana�, in Yemen, who flourished about 700 A.D. & made many mysterious pilgrimages to Babylon's ruins, Memphis's catacombs, & the devil-haunted & untrodden wastes of the great southern deserts of Arabia -- the Roba el Khaliyeh, where he claimed to have found records of things older than mankind, & to have learnt the worship of Yog-Sothoth & Cthulhu. The book was a product of Abdul's old age, which was spent in Damascus, & the original title was Al Azif -- azif (cf. Henley's notes to Vathek) being the name applied to those strange night noises (of insects) which the Arabs attribute to the howling of daemons. Alhazred died -- or disappeared -- under terrible circumstances in the year 738. In 950 Al Azif was translated into Greek by the Byzantine Theodorus Philetas under the title Necronomicon, & a century later it was burnt at the order of Michael, Patriarch of Constantinople. It was translated into Latin by Olaus in 1228, but placed on the Index Expurgatorius by Pope Gregory IX in 1232.fn The original Arabic was lost before Olaus' time, & the last known Greek copy perished in Salem in 1692. The work was printed in the 15th, 16th, & 17th centuries, but few copies are extant. Wherever existing, it is carefully guarded for the sake of the world's welfare & sanity. Once a man read through the copy in the library of Miskatonic University at Arkham -- read it through & fled wild-eyed into the hills ...... but that is another story!

In yet another letter (to James Blish and William Miller, 1936), Lovecraft says:

You are fortunate in securing copies of the hellish and abhorred Necronomicon. Are they the Latin texts printed in Germany in the fifteenth century, or the Greek version printed in Italy in 1567, or the Spanish translation of 1623? Or do these copies represent different texts?

Note that this is not entirely consistent with the accounts given earlier.

The Truth About The Necronomicon
by Donovan K. Loucks

from the H.P. Lovecraft archive at
www.hplovecraft.com/creation/necron/

Many labor under the misconception that the Necronomicon is a real book that predates Lovecraft. These pages have been created in the hopes of disabusing people of that notion. Included here are Lovecraft's own fictional references to the Necronom-icon, excerpts from Lovecraft's letters in which he states that the Necronomicon was his invention, and information on the various hoax editions of the Necronomicon, as well as on other sources of misinformation.

1. Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Stories
The world's first contact with the Necronomicon was through Lovecraft's "The Hound", as well as many other tales.

2. Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Letters
Lovecraft often had to explain to his many correspondents that he had invented the Necronomicon.

3-5.*

6. Some Final Thoughts on the Necronomicon
Some personal observations on the Necronomicon issue.

Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Stories

Even before Lovecraft introduced the Necronomicon to his readers, he mentioned its author, Abdul Alhazred, and the "unexplainable couplet":

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die. (The Nameless City, 99)

The first reference to the Necronomicon occurred when Lovecraft's The Hound (September 1922) was printed in the February 1924 issue of Weird Tales:

Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, but as we looked more closely we saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but we recognised it as the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly soul-symbol of the corpse-eating cult of inaccesible Leng, in Central Asia. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the dead. (The Hound, 174)

The jade amulet now reposed in a niche in our museum, and sometimes we burned strangely scented candles before it. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and about the relation of ghouls' souls to the objects it symolised; and were disturbed by what we read. (The Hound, 175)

Imagine the intrigue that these fragmentary comments stirred in the hearts of Weird Tales readers. In The Festival (1923), Lovecraft mentions the Necronomicon along with several "legitimate" occult books:

Pointing to a chair, table, and pile of books, the old man now left the room; and when I sat down to read I saw that the books were hoary and mouldy, and that they included old Morryster's wild Marvells of Science, the terrible Saducismus Triumphatus of Joseph Glanvill, published in 1681, the shocking Daemonolatreia of Remigius, printed in 1595 at Lyons, and worst of all, the unmentionable Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, in Olaus Wormius' forbidden Latin translation; a book which I had never seen, but of which I had heard monstrous things whispered. (The Festival, 211)

The Necronomicon figures in the rites practiced beneath Kingsport, and another lengthy quote is included at the end of the story:

The nethermost caverns...are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl. (The Festival, 216)

Lovecraft made a couple of passing references to the Necronomicon in The Descendant (1926). This fragment (the title is not Lovecraft's) did not see publication until 1938 when it appeared in issue 2 of Leaves. Lovecraft only mentions the Necronomicon briefly in The Call of Cthulhu (Summer 1926) and, in spite of the heavy occult tone of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (January-1 March 1927), Lovecraft didn't rely on the Necronomicon, instead referring more to traditional occult works.

Then, Lovecraft used his creation in two unusual ways. First, he included it in The Last Test (1927), a story he was revising for Adolphe de Castro, one of his most frequent revision clients. Second, he invented an Arabic title for the book, which only made sense because its author was Arabic:

"Be careful, you ----! There are powers against your powers--I didn't go to China for nothing, and there are things in Alhazred's Azif which weren't known in Atlantis!" (The Last Test, 47)

Lovecraft never used this Arabic title for the book again, except in letters and in his fictional History of the Necronomicon (1927). In this brief work, not printed until after Lovecraft's death, Lovecraft gives an account of the origin of the Necro-nomicon, as well as its translations from the original Arabic, into Greek, Latin, and eventually, English. Besides the "History", the greatest amount of information about the Necronomicon appeared in The Dunwich Horror (Summer 1928). The following passage is especially powerful:

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 substances walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men somtimes know them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones where Their seal is engraven, but who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. I�! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. 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, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again. (The Dunwich Horror, 170)

In another revision story, Medusa's Coil (May 1930), Lovecraft made only one passing reference to the Necronomicon. But, in his next tale, The Whisperer in Darkness (24 February - 26 September 1930), the Necronomicon is mentioned no less than five times. However, all of these references were also merely in passing. Just when it seemed as if Lovecraft had decided to use the Necronomicon as little more than window-dressing, he makes nearly a dozen references to it in At the Mountains of Madness (February-22 March 1931), one of his first tales that leans more heavily towards science-fiction than horror.

Something about the scene reminded me of the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich, and of the still stranger and more disturbing descriptions of the evilly fabled plateau of Leng which occur in the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. I was rather sorry, later on, that I had ever looked into that monstrous book at the college library. (At the Mountains of Madness, p. 7)

Dyer and Pabodie have read Necronomicon and seen Clark Ashton Smith's nightmare paintings based on text, and will understand when I speak of Elder Things supposed to have created all earth-life as jest or mistake. (At the Mountains of Madness, p. 22)

These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whispered about as the "shoggoths" in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existed except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb. (At the Mountains of Madness, p. 62)

Although Lovecraft's references to the Necronomicon in this story are not especially long or overt, his tying together of occult lore and scientific evidence is very effective. Lovecraft uses a similar technique in The Dreams in the Witch House (January-28 February 1932), in which he combines elements of the occult with that of Einsteinian physics.

Non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics are enough to stretch any brain; and when one mixes them with folklore, and tries to trace a strange background of multi-dimensional reality behind the ghoulish hints of the Gothic tales and the wild whispers of the chimney-corner, one can hardly expect to be wholly free from mental tension. Gilman came from Haverhill, but it was only after he entered college in Arkham that he began to connect his mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic. Something in the air of the hoary town worked obscurely on his imagination. The professors at Miskatonic had urged him to slacken up, and had voluntarily cut down his course at several points. Moreover, they had stopped him from consulting the dubious old books on forbidden secrets that were kept under lock and key in a vault at the university library. But all these precautions came late in the day, so that Gilman had some terrible hints from the dreaded Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred, the fragmentary Book of Eibon, and the suppressed Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt to correlate with his abstract formulae on the properties of space and the linkage of dimensions known and unknown. (The Dreams in the Witch House, p. 263)

Now that Lovecraft had established the Necronomicon in the minds of his readers, there was no need to rely on lengthy descriptions or quotes from it. After this point, Lovecraft refers to the book only briefly in seven stories: The Horror in the Museum (October 1932), Through the Gates of the Silver Key (October 1932-April 1933), Out of the Aeons (1933), The Thing on the Doorstep (21-24 August 1933), The Shadow out of Time (November 1934-March 1935), The Diary of Alonzo Typer (October 1935), and The Haunter of the Dark (November 1935). His previous references to the Necronomicon had been sufficient to arouse the interest of his readers, and the image of this archetypal book of evil had been firmly planted in their minds.

Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Letters

If Lovecraft raised any questions as to the reality of the Necronomicon and the entities named within it, one need only turn to his letters for the answers:

To Edwin Baird (February 3, 1924):

At one time I formed a juvenile collection of Oriental pottery and objects d'art, announcing myself as a devout Mohammedan and assuming the pseudonym of "Abdul Alhazred"--which you will recognise as the author of that mythical Necronomicon which I drag into various of my tales.

To Robert E. Howard (August 14, 1930):

Regarding the solemnly cited myth-cycle of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Nug, Yeb, Shub-Niggurath, etc., etc.--let me confess that this is all a synthetic concotion of my own, like the populous and varied pantheon of Lord Dunsany's Pegana. The reason for its echoes in Dr. de Castro's work is that the latter gentleman is a revision-client of mine--into whose tales I have stuck these glancing references for sheer fun. If any other clients of mine get work placed in W.T., you will perhaps find a still-wider spread of the cult of Azathoth, Cthulhu, and the Great Old Ones! The Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred is likewise something which must yet be written in order to possess objective reality. Abdul is a favourite dream-character of mine--indeed that is what I used to call myself when I was five years old and a transported devotee of Andrew Lang's version of the Arabian Nights. A few years ago I prepared a mock-erudite synopsis of Abdul's life, and of the posthumous vicissitudes and translations of his hideous and unmentionable work Al Azif...--a synopsis which I shall follow in future references to the dark and accursed thing. Long has alluded to the Necronomicon in some things of his--in fact, I think it is rather good fun to have this artificial mythology given an air of verisimilitude by wide citation. I ought, though, to write Mr. O'Neail and disabuse him of the idea that there is a large blind spot in his mythological erudition!

To Robert E. Howard (October 4, 1930):

...I read the Arabian Nights at the age of five. In those days I used to dress up in a turban, burnt-cork a beard on my face, and call myself by the synthetic name (Allah only knows where I got it!) of Abdul Alhazred -- which I later revived, in memory of old times, to confer on the hypothetical author of the hypothetical Necronomicon!

To Robert E. Howard (May 7, 1932):

As for writing the Necronomicon--I wish I had the energy and ingenuity to do it! I fear it would be quite a job in view of the very diverse passages and intimations which I have in the course of time attributed to it! I might, though, issue an abridged Necronomicon--containing such parts as are considered at least reasonably safe for the perusal of mankind! When von Juntz's Black Book and the poems of Justin Geoffrey are on the market, I shall certainly have to think about the immortalisation of old Abdul!

To Robert Bloch (May 9, 1933):

By the way -- there is no "Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred". That hellish & forbidden volume is an imaginative conception of mine, which others of the W.T. group have also used as a background of allusion.

To Robert Bloch (early to mid July 1933):

As for the "Necronomicon" -- this month's triple use of such allusions is bringing me in an unusual number of inquiries concerning the real nature & obtainability of Alhazred's, Eibon's, & von Junzt's works. In each case I am frankly confessing the fakery involved.

To Miss Margaret Sylvester (Jan. 13, 1934):

Regarding the Necronomicon--I must confess that this monstrous & abhorred volume is merely a figment of my own imagination! Inventing horrible books is quite a pastime among devotees of the weird, & . . . . . many of the regular W.T. contributors have such things to their credit--or discredit. It rather amuses the different writers to use one another's synthetic demons & imaginary books in their stories--so that Clark Ashton Smith often speaks of my Necronomicon while I refer to his Book of Eibon . . & so on. This pooling of resources tends to build up quite a pseudo-convincing background of dark mythology, legendry, & bibliography--though of course none of us has the least wish actually to mislead readers.

To Robert H. Barlow (August 14, 1934):

[P.S.] Just had 2 more enquiries as to the reality of the Necronomicon!

To William Frederick Anger (Aug. 14, 1934):

Regarding the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred--I must confess that both the evil volume & the accursed author are fictitious creatures of my own--as are the malign entities of Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, &c;. Tsathoggua & the Book of Eibon are inventions of Clark Ashton Smith, while Friedrich von Junzt & his monstrous Unaussprechlichen Kulten originated in the fertile brain of Robert E. Howard. For the fun of building up a convincing cycle of synthetic folklore, all of our gang frequently allude to the pet daemons of the others--thus Smith uses my Yog-Sothoth, while I use his Tsathoggua. Also, I sometimes insert a devil or two of my own in the tales I revise or ghost-write for professional clients. Thus our black pantheon acquires an extensive publicity & pseudo-authoritativeness it would not otherwise get. We never, however, try to put it across as an actual hoax; but always carefully explain to enquirers that it is 100% fiction. In order to avoid ambiguity in my references to the Necronomicon I have drawn up a brief synopsis of its 'history'... All this gives it a sort of air of verisimilitude.

To Willis Conover (July 29, 1936):

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. Robert Bloch devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis, while the Book of Eibon is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith's. The late 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.

To Harry O. Fischer (late February, 1937):

The name "Abdul Alhazred" is one which some adult (I can't recall who) devised for me when I was 5 years old & eager to be an Arab after reading the Arabian Nights. Years later I thought it would be fun to use it as the name of a forbidden-book author. The name Necronomicon...occurred to me in the course of a dream.

Although Lovecraft may have wanted his readers to at least temporarily suspend their disbelief in the Necronomicon, he always made the fiction of the book known to those who asked.

Some Final Thoughts on the Necronomicon

Despite all the evidence given in the other pages here, there will still be those who believe that the Necronomicon is a "real" book. There will also be those who merely claim to believe, as a means of getting a reaction out of others. There are also those who will claim that the power of the hoax Necronomicons is real, even those who admit that these books are "hoaxes".

There's not much point in arguing with this latter group of people. They are of the opinion that "power" comes from belief, and so their mere belief in these hoax books imbues them with power. Honestly, considering my own belief system, I don't know if I could disagree with this. However, I could argue that such books are unnecessary. If belief is all that is necessary to achieve occult power, why would one of these books be needed? Wouldn't the ingredients on a catsup bottle suffice as a chant or spell? For that matter, is any printed matter necessary at all?

There are also those who believe that Lovecraft's Necronomicon is an archetype of occult books. That is, that the book somehow exists in some Platonic sense, like a "perfect" circle. They are of the opinion that Lovecraft somehow tapped into some higher plane of consciousness and drew upon it for his creations. And they bolster their argument by pointing out his frequent references to his fantastic dreams.

How can one argue against this? It can no more be disproven than it can be proven. It's purely an opinion, with no facts to get in the way. Then again, I'm of the opinion that gravity is caused by countless invisible, chartreuse devils jumping up and down on things. Go ahead -- disprove that. Better yet, try to consider me among the sane for having such a crazy belief...

[It should be noted that the original text of what follows was heavily hyperlinked. Those links, and most references to them, have been removed for their lack of utility in this format. To view the original web page, go to geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necfake.htm]

Fake Necronomicons
by Dan Clore

"...the Necronomicon, a highly secret magical text released in paperback."
-- William S. Burroughs

The DeCamp-Scithers Necronomicon.
The Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford N.
The Simon Necronomicon.
The Gregorius Necronomicon.
The Quine Necronomicon.
The Ripel Necronomicon.
The Perez-Vigo Necronomicon.
The Lin Carter Necronomicon.
The H.R. Giger Necronomicon.
The Necronomicon Project.

The DeCamp-Scithers Necronomicon

Lovecraft biographer and science-fiction writer L. Sprague De Camp relates a tale of intrigue about how he smuggled the manuscript of this, entitled Al Azif, out of Iraq amidst various dangers. A scholar who attempted to translate it, he further states, wound up spattered all over the walls of his study. In fact, most of the book, released by Owlswick Press, consists of a mere eight pages of scrambled Syriac script repeated over and over, with the characters nearest the margins changed to help hide the repetition. As this obviously cannot be taken seriously, it would be unfair to consider this a hoax rather than a sort of in-joke.

DeCamp himself, in a later commentary on his introduction, has said:

I hope you get a chuckle out of this introduction -- but I also trust that you will not take it seriously. I may wish to go back to Iraq some day, and I do not want this little hoax to complicate my visit.

The Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford Necronomicon

Typical illustration from the Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford Necronomicon.

Little effort need be spent to prove that this version is not the genuine article, for Colin Wilson has admitted as much in his article, "The Necronomicon, the Origin of a Spoof", which appeared in Crypt of Cthulhu and was reprinted in Black Forbidden Things: Cryptical Secrets from the "Crypt of Cthulhu", edited by Robert Price. Wilson's claims cannot be taken entirely seriously, for he says:

In fact, anyone with the slightest knowledge of Latin will instantly recognise it for a fake -- it is subtitled "The book of dead names" -- when the word "necronomicon" actually means the book of dead laws.

In fact, anyone with the slightest knowledge of Latin will recognise that the title is Greek.

Wilson describes how George Hay approached him with the idea of his writing an introduction to a spoof volume of stories about the Necronomicon. The tales, according to Wilson, were very dreadful indeed, all centering on the theme of the scholar who finds the hellish tome, stupidly invokes powers greater than he can control, and winds up smeared all over the walls. Wilson instead proposed that they attempt to produce something that could actually be the Necronomicon itself. The idea was partly inspired by a tale by David Langford, in which a computer analysis proves the existence of the Necronomicon, with the usual unsightly results. In the finished volume, Langford indeed contributes a portion in which he claims that a computer analysis has deciphered the manuscript Liber Logaeth of John Dee, revealing it to be -- none other than. Robert Turner, an actual practitioner of ceremonial magick, contributes another section, purporting to be the translation of Liber Logaeth. For the most part, it is run-of-the-mill occultist fare, with typical magickal r�cip�s utilizing a few Mythos names. Wilson himself contributes the introduction, which presents a mishmash of fact and fantasy, claiming (unfoundedly) that Lovecraft's father belonged to "Egyptian Freemasonry" and had learned all sorts of bizarre occult secrets -- which he later spouted in his (actual) insanity. There is also a letter by a "Dr. Hinterstoisser", actually written by Dominic Purcell. The work also includes two essays supposedly written before the discovery of the manuscript key, and if anything in the book makes it worth owning it will be these. They are: Dreams of Dead Names: The Scholarship of Sleep by Christopher Frayling, -- which, by the way, includes an accurate account of Lovecraft's invention of Abdul Alhazred and the Necronomicon, and Lovecraft and Landscape, by Angela Carter.

Other than this, there is little to say about the book. Wilson's introduction will be interesting to those with the background knowledge to separate the fact from the fantasy. Some find the information on cryptography in Langford's piece interesting; there are entire books available on this subject, however, which are doubtless better sources. The material presented as the Necronomicon itself lacks aesthetic value. (For example, the near-constant -- but inconsistent -- use of "ye" for "the"; -- we could accept the authentically archaic "y

".) Whether it has value for practicing mages I leave to them to decide.

The use of the Cthulhu Mythos is also suspect. The well-known cryptic couplet appears several times misquoted as: "That which is not dead which can eternal lie..." Other inconsistencies with Lovecraft's conceptions appear as well. Shub-Niggurath appears as a male deity, whereas in Lovecraft this being is clearly female. The Old Ones are correlated with the four elements, in a scheme borrowed from August Derleth that neither appears in Lovecraft's work nor is consistent with it. The work also holds to the two warring factions, the "Elder Gods" vs the "Great Old Ones", another innovation of Derleth, along with his Christianity-inspired tale of the revolt of the Great Old Ones against their Elders and betters. The simple fact is, the vast majority of the material in this version of the Necronomicon owe its inspiration not to the Lovecraft Mythos, but to the vastly different Derleth Mythos -- when they are not simply supplanted by typical magick r�cip�s.

A number of on-line versions of the Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford Necronomicon exist. These include only the purported translations of Liber Logaeth, and omit all other material. [See website for links.]

There has since appeared a purported R'lyeh Text, compiled by the same team, which claims to continue the manuscript begun in the first volume. It is interesting to note that Lovecraft never used the name R'lyeh Text, which was in fact invented by August Derleth after Lovecraft's death, and which is not identical with the Necronomicon or any part of it. (It is supposedly in the actual tongue of Cthulhu himself and possibly brought from the stars with him.) For the most part, the book is just more of the same. There is included an interesting essay, Awake in the Witch-House: On the Trail of the 'real' Brown Jenkin, by Patricia Shore -- which, however, includes the notorious, spurious, "black magic" quotation. By 1992, one's scholarship really ought to have been better than that.

The Simon Necronomicon

Typical illustration from the Simon Necronomicon.

As this is the only Necronomicon which qualifies as a full-blown hoax rather than a spoof or in-joke, it will receive a longer examination than the others. There are quite a number of problems with the volume, all of them impeaching its claims to represent a true text of the Necronomicon.

The claims concerning the supposed manuscript are unconvincing. The publisher states that the MS cannot be held up to public inspection. But scholars would not normally use the actual manuscript of such a work; they would work from a set of photographs of it. Provision of such a set would certainly bolster the book's claim. In any case the story told about the discovery of the manuscript is simply too much like a bad Cthulhu Mythos story to be credible. In addition, they state that the manuscript is in Greek, whereas Lovecraft makes it clear that the Greek text has been lost for centuries. Simon says that one section of his putative translation, the URILLIA TEXT, "might be Lovecraft's R'lyeh Text". Lovecraft, however, never referred to the R'lyeh Text, which was an invention of August Derleth's (after Lovecraft's death); and the work is distinct from the Necronomicon in Derleth's conception.

It is evident that the majority of the work is composed of adaptations of existing translations of various Mesopotamian religious and magickal texts, with Lovecraftian names tossed in wherever the original is unreadable. Simon tosses together Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian materials without discrimination, in an historically impossible fashion. The pieces purporting to represent the original languages of various incantations are apparently simply gibberish.

Simon would like us to see great similarities between both his Mesopotamian material and the magick of Aleister Crowley, and the Lovecraft Mythos, but provides essentially no correspondances between them. What few he does attempt to argue for, are unconvincing. He would like us, for example, to see great similarity between the name Cthulhu and the Greek word st�l� (as in Crowley's St�l� of Revealing); -- in the right Greek typeface, it does look kind of like CTH^H. The other entries on his short list are either commonplaces of magick and weird fiction or even less similar. Again, he wants us to notice the similarity between Shub-Niggurath and Crowley's Pan (a commonplace of magick and weird fiction both), whereas Shub-Niggurath is female. (Yog-Sothoth would certainly correspond fairly well, on the other hand, given the basis of "The Dunwich Horror" in Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan".) Again, he would have us note the similarity between Lovecraft's exclamation I�!, Crowley's use of the commonplace exclamation Io! and the equally commonplace deity name IAO, and the Sumerian deity name IA, which Simon claims as a variant of the god EA (despite which, in his Necronomicon, it is used as the Lovecraftian exclamation).

Simon also wishes us to see a great correspondance between the Lovecraft Mythos and the Mesopotamian mythologies. He states:

Lovecraft depicted a kind of Christian Myth of the struggle between opposing forces of Light and Darkness, between God and Satan, in the Cthulhu Mythos.

And again:

Basically, there are two "sets" of gods in the mythos: the Elder Gods, about whom not much is revealed, save that they are a stellar Race that occasionally comes to the rescue of man, and which correspond to the Christian "Light"; and the Ancient Ones, about which much is told, sometimes in great detail, who correspond to "Darkness". These latter are the Evil Gods who wish nothing but ill for the Race of Man, and who constantly strive to break into our world through a Gate or Door that leads from the Outside, In.

Those knowledgable of modern Lovecraft scholarship will recognize that this does not accurately describe Lovecraft's work, in which there are no Elder Gods, and no cosmic conflict between Good and Evil in any form either. The term "Ancient Ones", as well, only occurs in one story -- and there, it is made clear that they are amoral and indifferent to man rather than evil. It is in fact an accurate description of the Derleth Mythos rather than the Lovecraft Mythos. Considering that renaming the Good and Evil sides of the Mesopotamian deities "The Elder Gods" and "The Ancient Ones" is the major attempt at syncretising the two systems, it would appear the attempt ended in abject failure.

The treatment of individual deities is hardly any better, however. Cthulhu appears as KUTULU, a name which never appeared before this book. Simon derives it from KUTU, the city Kutha, and LU, man. The proper Sumerian form, however, would be LU-KUTU, if these words were compounded. In any case, the name Cthulhu is of non-human origin and thus not amenable to such interpretation.

Simon derives Azathoth from a compound AZAG-THOTH, where AZAG is indeed a Sumerian demon, and THOTH is the Coptic name for the Egyptian deity Tehuti. As to how this compound name could have come about, however, he gives us no clue. Nor does he tell us why it had never appeared in print before.

Other deities are less convincing. Shub-Niggurath appears as ISHNIGGARAB. Yog-Sothoth appears as IAK SAKKAK.

Even where Simon merely cites a Lovecraftian name, without attempting to give a corresponding form, he frequently misspells them. So Yog-Sothoth appears as Yog Sothot, Azathoth as Azatot, "the mad Arab" as "the Mad Arab", shoggoth as shuggoth, etc.

At least one deity of paramount importance in Lovecraft, Nyarlathotep, has nothing corresponding to him in the Simon Necronomicon, as is the case with various minor creations of Lovecraft's that one might expect to put in an appearance, such as Yig, Nug and Yeb, Ghatanothoa, or Rhan-Tegoth, whereas several of the most important Mesopotamian deities in the volume have no corresponding deity in Lovecraft. These include: MARDUK, TIAMAT, PAZUZU, ENKI, NANNA, and INANNA (ISHTAR). Likewise, the various alien races invented by Lovecraft have no place in Simon's Necronomicon, while a host of supernatural creatures from Mesopotamian cultures, with no answering form in Lovecraft, figure prominently. Another questionable assertion that Simon makes is as follows:

Lovecraft's mythos deals with what are known as chthonic dieties [sic], that is, underworld gods and goddesses, much like the Leviathan of the Old Testament. The pronunciation of chthonic is 'katonic', which explains Lovecraft's famous Miskatonic River and Miskatonic University, not to mention the chief diety [sic] of his pantheon, Cthulhu, a sea monster who lies, "not dead, but dreaming" below the world; an Ancient One and supposed enemy of Mankind and the intelligent Race.

There is quite a number of problems with this statement:

The pronunciation of chthonic is 'thawnick'; the 'ch' is silent.
Sea monsters are not usually considered chthonic.
The name Miskatonic most likely derives from American Indian roots.
Cthulhu's name derives from an alien language predating humanity by aeons; it cannot derive from the word chthonic, though Lovecraft may have been influence in his coining of the name by that word. In any case, this assertion conflicts with Simon's proposed derivation of the word as KUTU + LU, used everywhere else in his Necronomicon.
Cthulhu is not the chief deity of Lovecraft's supposed pantheon, but is important due merely to his proximity.
Cthulhu is not a 'sea monster', but an extraterrestrial or extradimensional creature impeded by being trapped beneath the ocean.
Cthulhu is never referred to as an 'Ancient One', though he is associated with a group called the Great Old Ones.
Cthulhu is not an actual enemy of Mankind; men are merely in his way. This is like saying that a human is an enemy of Termitekind because he would exterminate those who infest his house.
What 'the intelligent Race' might refer to here is unclear; it would not seem to correspond to anything in Lovecraft.

Most readers seem to find the portion labelled "The Testimony of the Mad Arab" to work effectively as Lovecraftian fiction. Many claim that the volume works wonders in the area of magick, regardless of whether the factual claims made regarding its origins are fraudulent or not. This is fully consistent with modern theories of magick.

In addition to the inexpensive paperback edition, the Simon Necronomicon was also released in an expensive leatherbound edition of 666 copies, followed by another of 3,333 copies.

There is also a Simon Necronomicon Spellbook (originally titled The Necronomicon Report), which gives a more r�cip�-like approach to the section "The Book of Fifty Names". Another such volume, The Gates of the Necronomicon, was also announced for publication, but apparently never appeared. Avon has recently re-issued the Spellbook.

The Simon Necronomicon exists in pirated form on the Web. [See website for links.]

Various rumors have spread around concerning the true identity of "Simon". One of these states that he was Herman Slater, the proprietor of the Magickal Childe occult bookshop of New York, which is indeed mentioned prominently in the volume.

Another, more likely rumor, has it that he was a magickian in need of cash, who has subsequently gained a great name for himself in the field of Chaos Magick. Less likely candidates rumored to have authored the Simon Necronomicon include L. Sprague De Camp, Colin Wilson, L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, and Sandy Pearlman (the Lovecraft-influenced lyricist for the band Blue �yster Cult).

The Gregorius Necronomicon

Published in Germany and German, titled Das Necronomicon: Nach den Aufzeichnungen von Gregor A. Gregorius (The Necronomicon: From the Transcription of Gregor A. Gregorius), this is simply a translation of the Simon Necronomicon. The volume also includes a German translation of an authentic mediaeval grimoire called the Goetia; or, the Lesser Keys of King Solomon.

The Quine Necronomicon

The purported translation of the Necronomicon made by Antonius Quine appears to be so fake it doesn't even exist. However, if you have any information on it please contact me:

[email protected].

The Ripel Necronomicon

This was published by one Frank G. Ripel, who is head of the Ordo Rosae Mysticae (Order of the Mystic Rose), in Italy, 1987-88, as part of his Sabaean Trilogy. It includes a book called Sauthenerom, of ancient Egyptian origins, and a text of the Necronomicon, which is alleged to be 4,000 years old and to have been plagiarized by Abdul Alhazred.

The Perez-Vigo Necronomicon

Recently published in Spain, this edition by Fernando Perez-Vigo reputedly includes a Necronomic Tarot along with a text derived from those of the Ripel Necronomicon and the Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford Necronomicon. I have been unable to obtain any information on the Perez-Vigo Necronomicon, including whether or not it truly even exists. If you have any such information (especially if you know where I might obtain a copy), please contact me: [email protected].

The Lin Carter Necronomicon

"If the Necronomicon actually existed, it would be out in Bantam paperback with a preface by Lin Carter."
-- T.E.D. Klein

Lin Carter wrote several short stories which purport to be chapters from the John Dee translation of the Necronomicon. They relate various adventures of Abdul Alhazred. Obviously and explicitly fiction, this is only included here for completeness.

Lin Carter's version is included in a volume available from Chaosium, edited by Robert M. Price and entitled The Necronomicon: Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab, containing sundry works of interest.

The H.R. Giger Necronomicon

Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger has used the title Necronomicon for a book compiling his necrotic art. Obviously, this makes no claim to be an authentic Necronomicon, but we include the entry not only for completeness, but as a pretext to enthusiastically endorse Giger's art. Giger has also produced a sequel volume, Necronomicon II.

The Necronomicon Project

This is a collaborative effort to create a fake Necronomicon on the Web. There is clearly no attempt to claim validity for the results of this project.

See it at:
www.eerie.fr/~alquier/HPL/azif/n_index.html

A Necronomicon Glossary
Compiled by Dan Clore.

Contents:

Abdul Alhazred
R.W. Chambers & The King in Yellow
Aleister Crowley
John Dee
Ebn Khallikan
Ibn Schacabao
Irem, the City of Pillars
(The Patriarch) Michael
Theodorus Philetas
The Voynich Manuscript
Olaus Wormius

Abdul Alhazred

H.P. Lovecraft invented the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, and no references to this name have been found that do not stem from Lovecraft's use of it. The story of Abdul Alhazred's life may be found in Lovecraft's History of the Necronomicon. It is notable that none of the variant forms of the name used by other writers appear in Lovecraft's work; indeed, his only use of a variant form ("Abdool Al-Hazred") appears in a letter from the eighteenth century quoted in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Lovecraft himself describes the origin of the name in a pair of letters:

... how many dream-Arabs have the Arabian Nights bred! I ought to know, since at the age of 5 I was one of them! I had not then encountered Graeco-Roman myth, but found in Lang's Arabian Nights a gateway to glittering vistas of wonder and freedom. It was then that I invented for myself the name of Abdul Alhazred, and made my mother take me to all the Oriental curio shops and fit me up an Arabian corner in my room.

I can't quite recall where I did get Abdul Alhazred. There is a dim recollection which associates it with a certain elder -- the family lawyer, as it happens, but I can't remember whether I asked him to make up an Arabic name for me, or whether I merely asked him to criticise a choice I had otherwise made.

It should be noted that the element "hazred" may be a pun on the phrase "all has read" or "has read all". Another possible origin is a distorted form of Hazard, the common prefix "al" (the definite article) being added on to the beginning. Lovecraft claimed that his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Robert Hazard (1635-1710), one of a well-known family in Rhode Island history. There appears to be no evidence to support this contention.

In any case, it should be noted that the name Abdul Alhazred is not a properly-formed Arabic name. The element -ul in Abdul is identical to the al- of Alhazred, thus meaning that this element is simply repeated. Additionally, hazred does not exist in Arabic, although it is theoretically possible (however, every single letter in the name could represent more than one possible Arabic original, making it hopelessly obscure as a whole).

This, however, need not be seen as a problem, as many Arabic authors are known in Europe under distorted forms of their true names, such as: Avicenna for Abu Ali al-Husein ibn Senna, Hali for Khalid ibn Yazid, Averro�s for Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd, etc. A number of suggestions along this line have been made, among them:

Abd al-Azrad. Abd = servant; azrad
Abdallah Zahr-ad-Dihn. "Servant-of-God Flower-of-Faith."
Abd Al-'Uzz� ar-Rahib ibn Ad. Abd = servant; Al-'Uzz�, a goddess woshipped alongside Allah in the pre-Muslim period; ar-Rahib = hermit; ibn Ad, of the tribe of Ad, a fabulous race of prehistoric giants.

Another suggestion has been that the name is not Arabic at all, but rather Yemenite, and translates as "one-who-sees-what-should-not-be-seen".

Robert W. Chambers
and The King in Yellow

Lovecraft's History of the Necronomicon states that: "It was from rumours of this book (of which relatively few of the general public know) that R.W. Chambers is said to have derived the idea of his early novel The King in Yellow. Chambers' book appeared in 1895 and is not a novel but a collection of short stories. Some of these stories in turn refer to a play also titled The King in Yellow, and which drives its readers mad. Some have speculated that Lovecraft derived his idea of the Necronomicon from Chambers' work; this, however, is impossible, as he did not read Chambers until 1927 (the same year, incidentally, that he authored the History -- the similarity in conception apparently inspiring the playful allusion) and had referred to the Necronomicon by name as early as 1922 (The Hound).

Aleister Crowley

Much speculation has been wasted on the hypothesis that Lovecraft may have been influenced in his conceptions by the occultist and magickian Aleister Crowley. It is usually hypothesized that Lovecraft's wife, Sonya, provides a link between the two during Lovecraft's New York period. In fact, we know perfectly well that Lovecraft had heard of Crowley, and exactly what he thought of him. Lovecraft mentions Crowley in the Selected Letters V, p. 120, -- this letter written in the last year of Lovecraft's life -- and here's what he has to say:

In the 1890's the fashionable decadents liked to pretend that they belonged to all sorts of diabolic Black Mass cults, & possessed all sorts of frightful occult information. The only specimen of this group still active is the rather over-advertised Aleister Crowley .... who, by the way, is undoubtedly the original of the villainous character in H.R. Wakefield's He Cometh & He Passeth By.

This quotation proves conclusively that Lovecraft knew nothing of Crowley other than what anyone would have gleaned from the press's libelous attacks against him.

Dr. John Dee

Dr. John Dee & Edward Kelly

John Dee was born on July 13, 1527 in London. His life included a notable amount of study and practice of magick, some of it in service to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Much of Dee's practice consisted of alchemical experiments, and he also indulged in the creation of talismans. However, he gained the most notoriety for the contact that he and his associate Edward Kelly (who may have been something of a con man) established with a group of praeterhuman beings they referred to as Enochian Angels, recalling the apocryphal Book of Enoch. In this, Kelly acted as "skryer", gazing into a "shewstone" -- a piece of crystal, dictating to Dee the messages sent by the Enochian Angels. It is interesting to note that these messages are composed in their own unique language, which does indeed have its own syntax and vocabulary. Later mages have supposedly found this language to be the most effective language known for their incantatory purposes. In any case, Dr. Dee acquired a reputation as the archetypal mage.

Dee was first connected with the Necronomicon by Frank Belknap Long, who seems, however, to have had in mind that Dee was its author rather than a mere translator. H.P. Lovecraft, having recently written his History of the Necronomicon, then added that Dee had translated the work and referred to this translation in The Dunwich Horror.

One of the more interesting bits of Forteana concerns Dee's Enochian Angels. When Aleister Crowley was in contact with them, he produced a portrait of one, named Lam. As can be seen, Lam appears almost identical to the "Greys" who currently besiege UFO abductees:

Lam, an Enochian Angel

Ebn Khallikan

Ibn Khallik�n (1211-1282) was born in Irbil and lived in Egypt and Syria, where he served as kadi (head of justice) of Damas. He compiled a biographical dictionary, the first of its kind, that took twenty years to complete.

Extant versions (Ibn Khallik�n updated the work several times) do not seem to include an entry for Abdul Alhazred, either under that name, or under any recognizable variant. This should not be too surprising, considering that the work followed the novel plan of only including information which had been obtained first-hand from living individuals. So, the omission of the eighth-century mad Arab is understandable, as Ibn Khallik�n is unlikely to have had access to him in the thirteenth century (do I smell a plot-germ here?).

Ibn Schacabao

Lovecraft has Alhazred cite Ibn Schacabao with the interesting couplet:

Happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain,
And happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes.

Ibn Schacabao is also referred to in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, in which Joseph Curwen writes in a letter:

I laste Night strucke on ye Wordes that bringe up YOGGE-SOTHOTHE, and sawe for ye firste Time that face spoke of by Ibn Schacabao in ye ------.

Later authors have given Ibn Schacabao's work the tile Reflections.

The name "Schacabao" is not a proper Arabic name. It has thus been subjected to much the same speculation as Alhazred. Possibilities include:

Ibn Shayk Abol, "Son of the Sheik Abol".
Ibn Mushacab, "Son of the Dweller" (shacab, "to sit, inhabit, dwell" plus mu-, personalizing element).
Some derivate of the Hebrew term shakhabh, "bestiality".

Irem, the City of Pillars

In Lovecraft's History of the Necro-nomicon we read: "Of his [Alhazred's] madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen the fabulous Irem, or City or Pillars, and to have...."

Elsewhere in the fiction Irem is mentioned only in these brief allusions:

....and one terrible final scene shewed a primitive-looking man, perhaps a pioneer of ancient Irem, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces by members of the elder race. (The Nameless City, D 106)

Of the cult, he [Castro] said that he thought the centre lay amid the pathless deserts of Arabia, where Irem, the City of Pillars, dreams hidden and untouched. (The Call of Cthulhu, DH 141)

That antique Silver Key, he [Randolph Carter] said, would unlock the successive doors that bar our free march down the mightly corridors of space and time to the very Border which no man has crossed since Shaddad with his terrific genius built and concealed in the sands of Arabia Petraea the prodigious domes and uncounted minarets of thousand-pillared Irem. Half-starved dervishes -- wrote Carter -- and thirst-crazed nomads have returned to tell of that monumental portal, and of the Hand that is sculptured above the keystone of the arch, but no man has passed and returned to say that his footprints on the garnet-strown sands within bear witness. The key, he surmised, was that for which the Cyclopean sculptured Hand vainly grasps. (Through the Gates of the Silver Key, MM 426)

"Be careful, you -- -- ! There are powers against your powers -- I didn't go to China for nothing, and there are things in Alhazred's Azif which weren't known in Atlantis! We've both meddled in dangerous things, but you needn't think you know all my resources. How about the Nemesis of Flame? I talked in Yemen with an old man who had come back alive from the Crimson Desert -- he had seen Irem, the City of Pillars, and had worshipped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb -- I�! Shub-Niggurath!" (The Last Test, HM 47)

Lovecraft did not invent Irem. The City of Pillars is mentioned in the Q�ran; in the Arabian Nights; and in Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. In these, Irem, Iram, or Ir�m appears as a city destroyed ages before and lying buried somewhere in the desert sand. Its many columns, pillars, or towers are frequently mentioned.

Lovecraft's precise source, however, can be determined from an entry [no. 47] in his commonplace book. Here, Lovecraft cites an article from the Encyclopedia Britannica, of which he owned the ninth edition:

From "Arabia" Encyc. Britan. II-255: Prehistoric fabulous tribes of Ad in the south, Thamood in the north, and Tasm and Jadis in the centre of the peninsula. "Very gorgeous are the descriptions given of Irem, the City of Pillars (as the Koran styles it) supposed to have been erected by Shedad, the latest despot of Ad, in the regions of Hudramaut, and which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally, and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller." Rock excavations in N.W. Hejaz ascribed to Thamood tribe.

In 1975, there was an archaeological discovery in the city Ebla, which had itself been discovered only the decade before. There, a library of more than fifteen thousand tablets was found. Some of these tablets mentioned Irem by name, taking it out of the realm of legend and giving it a historical foundation.

The City of Pillars made a further step into reality when archaeologist examined photographs taken by the space shuttle Challenger in 1984. These, of the Arabian Gulf Coast, revealed a number of buried cities along routes to the "Atlantis of the Sands" -- the center of the frankincense trade between 2800 BCE and 100 CE. Among others, there was found a city known as Ubar, identified with the Irem of Arabic legendry.

(The Patriarch) Michael

Most likely, Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1043-58.

Theodorus Philetas

So far as I know, this purported translator of the Necronomicon is purely fictional and an invention of Lovecraft's.

The Voynich Manuscript

In two works by Colin Wilson, The Return of the Lloigor and The Philosopher's Stone, the Voynich Manuscript's code is cracked and the volume turns out to be the Necronomicon. The Voynich Manuscript really does exist; however, it remains indecipherable to this day. Here is a description of the Voynich Manuscript from the Catalogue of Yale University Library, where it currently resides:

MS 408
Cipher Manuscript
Central Europe [?], s. XV^ex-XVI [?]

Scientific or magical text in an unidentified language, in cipher, apparently based on Roman minuscule characters; the text is believed by some scholars to be the work of Roger Bacon since the themes of the illustrations seem to represent topics known to have interested Bacon (see also Provenance below.) A history of the numerous attempts to decipher the manuscript can be found in a volume edited by R. S. Brumbaugh, The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978). Although several scholars have claimed decipherments of the manuscript, for the most part the text remains an unsolved puzzle. R. S. Brumbaugh has, however, suggested a decipherment that establishes readings for the star names and plant labels; see his "Botany and the Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Manuscript Once More," Speculum 49 (1974) pp. 546-48; "The Solution of the Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Cipher," Gazette 49 (1975) pp. 347-55; "The Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Cipher Manuscript: Deciphered Maps of Stars," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976) pp. 139-50.

Parchment. ff. 102 (contemporary foliation, Arabic numerals; not every leaf foliated) + i (paper), including 5 double-folio, 3 triple- folio, 1 quadruple-folio and 1 sextuple-folio folding leaves. 225 x 160 mm.

Collation is difficult due to the number of fold-out leaves that are not always foliated consistently. I-VII^8 (f. 12 missing), VIII^4 (leaves foliated 59 through 64 missing from center of quire), IX^2 (double and triple fold-out leaves), X^2 (1 triple fold-out), XI^2 (1 quadruple fold-out), XII^2 (f. 74 missing, followed by stubs of conjugate leaves), XIII^10, XIV^1 (sextuple fold-out), XV^4 (1 triple and 1 double fold-out), XVI^4 (1 double fold-out; ff. 91, 92, 97, 98 missing, 2 stubs between 94 and 95), XVII^4 (2 double fold-outs), XVIII^12 (ff. 109-110, central bifolium, missing). Quire signatures in lower right corner, verso, and sometimes on recto.

Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink with washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red. Based on the subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the manuscript falls into six sections: Part I. ff. 1r-66v Botanical sections containing drawings of 113 unidentified plant species. Special care is taken in the representation of the flowers, leaves and the root systems of the individual plants. Drawings accompanied by text. Part II. ff. 67r- 73v Astronomical or astrological section containing 25 astral diagrams in the form of circles, concentric or with radiating segments, some with the sun or the moon in the center; the segments filled with stars and inscriptions, some with the signs of the zodiac and concentric circles of nude females, some free-standing, other emerging from objects similar to cans or tubes. Little continuous text. Part III. ff. 75r-84v "Biological" section containing drawings of small- scale female nudes, most with bulging abdomens and exaggerated hips, immersed or emerging from fluids, or interconnecting tubes and capsules. These drawings are the most enigmatic in the manuscript and it has been suggested that they symbolically represent the process of human reproduction and the procedure by which the soul becomes united with the body (cf. W. Newbold and R. Kent, The Cipher of Roger Bacon [Philadelphia, 1928] p. 46). Part IV. ff. 85r-86v This sextuple- folio folding leaf contains an elaborate array of nine medallions, filled with stars and cell-like shapes, with fibrous structures linking the circles. Some medallions with petal-like arrangements of rays filled with stars, some with structures resembling bundles of pipes. Part V. ff. 87r-102v Pharmaceutical section containing drawings of over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots, all with identifying inscriptions. On almost every page drawings of pharmaceutical jars, resembling vases, in red, green and yellow, or blue and green. Accompanied by some continuous text. Part VI. ff. 103r- 117v Continuous text, with stars in inner margin on recto and outer margins of verso. Folio 117v includes a 3-line presumed "key" opening with a reference to Roger Bacon in anagram and cipher.

Binding: s. xviii-xix. Vellum case. Remains of early paper pastedowns.

Written in Central Europe [?] at the end of the 15th or during the 16th [?] century; the origin and date of the manuscript are still being debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered text. The identification of several of the plants as New World specimens brought back to Europe by Columbus indicates that the manuscript could not have been written before 1493. The codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon; see the autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci (d. 1667, rector of Prague University) transcribed under item A below. It is very likely that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English astrologer John Dee (1527-1608) whose foliation remains in the upper right corner of each leaf (we thank A. G. Watson for confirming this identification through a comparison of the Arabic numerals in the Beinecke manuscript with those of John Dee in Oxford, Bodleian Library Ashmole 1790, f. 9v, and Ashmole 487). See also A. G. Watson and R. J. Roberts, eds., John Dee's Library Catalogue (London, The Bibliographical Society, forthcoming). Dee apparently owned the manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts; he was in Prague 1582-86 and was in contact with Emperor Rudolph during this period. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October 1586, and his son Arthur (cited by Sir T. Browne, Works, G. Keynes, ed. [1931] v. 6, p. 325) noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned "a booke...containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it out." Emperor Rudolph seems to have given the manuscript to Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenecz (d. 1622); inscription on f. 1r "Jacobi de Tepenecz" (erased but visible under ultra-violet light). Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher, S. J. (1601-80) in 1666. Acquired by Wilfred M. Voynich in 1912 from the Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. Given to the Beinecke Library in 1969 by H. P. Kraus (Cat. 100, pp. 42-44, no. 20) who had purchased it from the estate of Ethel Voynich.

Included with MS 408 is the following supplementary material in folders or boxes labelled A - N.

A: Autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland in which he presents the manuscript to Athanasius Kircher in Rome, in the belief that Kircher would be able to decipher it. "Reuerende et Eximie Domine in Christo Pater. Librum hunc ab amico singulari mihi testamento relictum, mox eundem tibi amicissime Athanisi ubi primum possidere coepi, animo destinaui: siquidem persuasum habui a nullo nisi abs te legi posse. Petijt aliquando per litteras ejusdem libri tum possessor judicium tuum parte aliqua a se descripta et tibi transmissa, ex qua reliqua a te legi posse persuasum habuit; uerum librum ipsum transmittere tum recusabat in quo discifrando posuit indefessum laborem, uti manifestum ex conatibus ejusdem hic una tibi transmissis neque prius huius spei quam uitae suae finem fecit. Verum labor hic frustraneus fuit, siquidem non nisi suo Kirchero obediunt eiusmodi sphinges. Accipe ergo modo quod pridem tibi debebatur hoc qualecunque mei erga te affectus indicium; huiusque seras, si quae sunt, consueta tibi felicitate perrumpe. retulit mihi D. Doctor Raphael Ferdinandi tertij Regis tum Boemiae in lingua boemica instructor dictum librum fuisse Rudolphi Imperatoris, pro quo ipse latori qui librum attulisset 600 ducatos praesentarit, authorem uero ipsum putabat esse Rogerium Bacconem Anglum. ego judicium meum hic suspendo. tu uero quid nobis hic sentiendum defini, cujus fauori et gratiae me totum commendo maneoque. Reuerentiae Vestrae. Ad Obsequia Joannes Marcus Marci a Cronland. Pragae 19. Augusti AD 1666 [or 1665?].

B: Correspondence between W. Voynich abd Prof. W. R. Newbold concerning Newbold's supposed decipherment of the manuscript (1919-26). Correspondence between Anne M. Nills, executrix of the estate of Ethel Voynich, and the Rev. Theodore C. Peterson, dated 1935-61, concerning the provenance, dating and decipherment of the manuscript.

C: Cardboard tube containing articles from international newspapers and magazines; among them The New York Times, The Washington Post, Der Zeitgeist, and others, concerning the announced sale by H. P. Kraus of the cipher manuscript.

D: Scrapbook of newspaper clippings (1912-26) concerning the cipher manuscript, compiled by W. Voynich.

E: Miscellaneous handwritten notes of W. Voynich.

F: Miscellaneous material, including handwritten notes by A. Nills about the cipher, and her correspondence about the sale of the manuscript.

G: Five notebooks handwritten by Ethel Voynich containing notes on the identification of the plants, medicinal herbs and roots; miscellaneous notes by A. Nills listing some characters or combinations of characters as they appear in the manuscript.

H: Box of negative and positive photostats.

I - L: Lectures, pamphlets, reviews and articles concerning the manuscript. Includes (in K) the transcript of a seminar held in Washington D. C. on November 1976 entitled "New Research on the Voynich Manuscript."

M: Miscellaneous correspondence between R. Brumbaugh and J. M. Saul (Paris) and J. Arnold (Oak Grove, Mo.). Handwritten transcription of ff. 89v-116r by R. Brumbaugh.

Olaus Wormius

In his History of the Necronomicon Lovecraft states that: "(1228) Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice". While this is a fine example of Lovecraft's pseudo-documentary style, he has committed an unfortunate error in placing Olaus Wormius at this time. In fact, Olaus Wormius (Ole Wurm) was a Danish physician who lived from 1588-1654, putting him far too late to make the translation Lovecraft imputes to him.

Wormius published a work on the literature of his native country, Runir; seu, Danica Literatura Antiquissima, vulgo Gothica Dicta Luci Reddita (1636), and also a book on the philosopher's stone, Liber Aureus Philosophorum (1625). Lovecraft's unfortunate error can be attributed to his use of secondary sources rather than primary. He drew on a work of Hugh Blair (1718-1800), A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal (1763), which contains a section on Runic or Gothic poetry in general. In this, Blair states:

Their poets were distinguished by the title of Scalders, and their songs were termed Vyses. Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian of considerable note, who flourished in the thirteenth century, informs us, [....] A more curious monument of the true Gothic poetry is preserved by Olaus Wormius, in his book de Literatura Runica. It is an Epicedium, or funeral song, composed by Regner Lodbrog; and translated by Olaus, word for word from the original.

It can be seen from this that Lovecraft has accidentally conflated this two figures, thus leading him into his erroneous dating of Wormius in the thirteenth century. As an item of trivia, it is interesting to note that Lovecraft prepared a rough draft of a translation of Wormius' Latin version of Regner Lodbrog's poem.

(I am indebted to S.T. Joshi's fine essay, "Lovecraft, Regner Lodbrog, and Olaus Wormius", which appeared in Crypt of Cthulhu, No. 89, for most of the facts in this entry.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

It could be that you have already read some stories written by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, or perhaps you have seen movie adaptations of his works such as The Haunted Palace; Die, Monster, Die; or The Dunwich Horror. If so, you know the Necronomicon can be found in the library of Miskatonic University--and that both Miskatonic U. and the Necronomicon were "invented" by Lovecraft's lively imagination. But so vividly did he describe the book and the university that many readers came to believe both really existed.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft had the gift of writing so about the unbelievable that it came alive. He has been called the 20th century Edgar Allen Poe, but unlike Poe he dreamed up convincing settings for his stories. You won't find his towns of Arkham, Innsmouth, or Dunwich on any map of New England--but you wouldn't be surprised if you did! Lovecraft knew a lot about New England, it's history, geography, architecture. He built his knowledge into his imaginary places, and that is why they seem so real. And because the settings of his stories seem real, the fantastic events that happen in them also seem real.

Anyone who reads a Lovecraft story gets a guided tour of some weird and peculiar worlds. He peers into other dimensions; spans interstellar space; catches glimpses of shifting, scary shapes. But the man responsible for these nightmare visions was not at all frightening. He was a kindly, gentle person--more interested in helping young writers get a start than in advancing his own career. No aspiring writer ever sent his work to H.P. Lovecraft without getting back a long and friendly letter full of helpful suggestions--and encouragement!

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 20, 1890. He learned the alphabet at the age of two, and at four was already reading fairy tales and the Arabian Nights. Later, he wrote that his grandfather, "observing my tastes in reading, used to devise all sorts of yarns about black woods, unfathomed caves, winged horrors, and old witches with sinister cauldrons." With his head and imagination crammed full of such "horrors," Lovecraft began to write fiction as a child, and his first story was called "The Noble Eavesdropper."

As a boy, Lovecraft's health was poor and he spent most of his early years as a semi-invalid. His father died when he was three, and after the death of his grandfather, he had only the company of his mother and his aunts. Perhaps he was cut off from the companionship of other children by ill-health, he began to dream of other, more interesting worlds. In his mind he saw "vast unplumbed recesses of space that loom perpetually around our insignificant dust grain." In time these visions were to become the terrifying settings of many of his eerie tales.

"All my stories," Lovecraft once wrote, "are based on the fundamental legend that this world was at one time inhabited by another race. For practicing black magic, they lost their foothold and were expelled, yet they live on outside--ever ready to take possession of the earth again."

In his stories this "other race" is called the Old Ones. Were they gods or demons? No, says Fritz Leiber, author and close friend of Lovecraft. The Old Ones were meant to be "extraterrestrials" (beings from outer space), according to Leiber, "and most of Lovecraft's later tales are science-fiction with a slight-to-moderate supernatural dusting."

All his life (he died in 1937), Howard Lovecraft wished himself out of the 20th century. He always told his friends if he had a choice, he would have preferred being born in the 18th century because he felt most at home with the ways of that time. Berkeley Square, which starred Leslie Howard as a man who was whisked out of the 20th century and back to the 18th, was his favorite movie. Perhaps it was because he disliked the 20th century so that he became an adult recluse, hiding behind drawn shades in the daytime, and wandering about Providence at night. But even as a recluse, he did not separate himself from others. He journeyed to New York, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana just to visit friends. And he spent more time and energy on his "paper friends," --his correspondents, many of whom he never met--than on his own work.

With his correspondents, Howard Lovecraft could relax. His letters, written in tiny, crabbed writing, are full of sly humor. Instead of a return address and a date, they could bear such headings as "Black Marsh of Gthath, Hour that the Ooze Stirs," or "Black Cylinder Floating between Two Universes, Hour of the Burning Galaxy." In one letter he sent to me, he refers to a description of himself given by a mutual friend: "As it happens, several points in Mr. Sterling's word-picture are misleading. It is out of my right, not left shoulder that the ropy tentacles grow. What grows out of the left shoulder is one of my four eyeless heads. This head is not to be confused with the one growing out of my right elbow (the one with the green fangs)."

Although Howard Lovecraft was not this unusual in appearance, he did stand out in a crowd. He looked like a writer of weird stories. He was tall and gaunt, with a bony face that could have been a composite of the faces of actors Boris Karloff and Max von Sydow. But although the face might at first seem forbidding, the eyes gave away the real man inside. They were warm and friendly, interested in everything and everybody.

Although his bad health in early life kept him from attending college, Lovecraft's knowledge of the arts and sciences was amazing. He read widely and his photographic memory enabled him to retain almost everything he read. He spoke several languages, and even carried on a correspondence in latin with a student who was a latin major. History was a specialty of his, and he enjoyed pointing out historical errors in Hollywood epics.

For all his knowledge and talent, Howard Lovecraft lived and died a poor man. In his time, the only magazine that published the kind of stories he wrote was Weird Tales--and it paid its authors only a cent a word. Book publishers did not become interested in his work until after his death. Lovecraft earned so little money with his writing that he could spend only a dollar a day for food, and he often skipped that food so that he could use the money for postage and paper to write his correspondents. Toward these pen friends he was unfailingly generous--not only with what little money he had, but with his time and his encouragement. Without this encouragement, many of us would never have gone on hoping and trying to be writers.

--Margaret Ronan

Written in 1926
Originally Published in
A History of the Necronomicon,
Oakman, AL: The Rebel Press, 1938, 2-4.

Image of H.P. Lovecraft courtesy of
The Hall of the Sausage King
http://www.wurst.net/lovecraft.html

The Truth about the Necronomicon
Obtained at The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
http://www.hplovecraft.com
�1998 Donovan K. Loucks

Fake Necronomicons and
Necronomicon Glossary obtained
at Dan Clore's Necronomicon site
www.geocities.com
/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
�1997-99 Dan Clore

Lovecraft Bio by M. Ronan taken from
The Shadow over Innsmouth
and Other Stories of Horror
Published by Scholastic Book Services
1st printing, December 1971

Formatted for ebook/HTML
and OCR proofread by Fauve
[email protected]

1st Edition Released
May 2000

2nd Edition Released
July 2000