A little bit of ‘Lovecraftian’ ephemera today by way of a King in Yellow enamel cloissone badge - part of a series of such badges depicting classic Cthulhu mythos tomes. Robert W. Chambers’ eponymous collection of short stories has gained in popularity in recent years as a consequence of it forming a part of the mythology of True Detective season one, and a couple of the tales in that collection which actually deal directly with The King in Yellow have been recognised as classics of the weird/cosmic horror genre, I’m with Joe Pulver as treating Chambers’ fictive universe as somethng separate from and largely unattached to Lovecraft’s own mythos.
Whilst the Yellow Sign, Carcosa, Hali and Hastur are indeed all mentioned in Lovecraft’s The Whisperer in Darkness, these are passing references framed by little or no context, and the addition of Hastur to the ever growing pantheon of Old Ones, Elder Gods and Great Old Ones largely hinges on Derleth’s own skewed (mis)-interpretation of the Cthulhu mythos. In addition to which, some modern iteration of Hastur have come across as a little too ‘mystical’, and thus counter to the secular demythologisation which Lovecraft subjects his own creations to in his later work (including The Whisperer in Darkness).
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