Necronomicon

The Necronomicon is the title of a fictional text in the works of American fantasy/horror author H.P. Lovecraft and other writers in the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction.

The Necronomicon was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". 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. Inter alia, the work contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them.

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

Origin

How Lovecraft conceived the name "Necronomicon" is not clear—Lovecraft himself claimed that the title came to him in a dream. 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.Joshi & Schultz, "Chambers, Robert William", An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 38

Donald R. Burleson has argued that the idea for the book was derived from Nathaniel Hawthorne, though Lovecraft himself noted that "mouldy hidden manuscripts" were one of the stock features of Gothic literature.Joshi, "Afterword".

Lovecraft wrote that the title, as translated from the Greek language, meant "An image of the law of the dead": nekros ("corpse"), nomos ("law"), eikon ("image"). A more prosaic (but probably more correct) translation can be derived by conjugating nemo ("to consider"): "Concerning the dead".

Greek editions of Lovecraft's works have commented that the word can have several different meanings in Greek when broken at its roots:
Necro-Nomicon : The Book of the Dead, derived from Nomicon (Book of Law).
Necro-Nomo-icon : The Book of Dead Laws.
Necro-Nemo-ikon : A Study or Classification of the Dead.
Necro-Nomo-eikon : Image of the Law of the Dead.
Necro-Nemein-Ikon : Book Concerning the Dead.
Necr(o)-Onom-icon : The Book of Dead Names, derived from onoma (name).

Fictional history

In 1927, Lovecraft wrote a brief pseudo-history of the Necronomicon that was published in 1938, after his death, as A History of The Necronomicon. According to this account, the book was originally called Al Azif, a word that Lovecraft claimed was an Arabic word that referred to "that nocturnal sound (made by insects) supposed to be the howling of daemons".

In the History, Alhazred is said to have been a "half-crazed Muslim" who worshipped the Lovecraftian entities Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. He is described as being from Sanna in Yemen, and as visiting the ruins of Babylon, the "subterranean secrets" of Memphis and the Empty Quarter of Arabia (where he discovered the "nameless city" below Irem). In his last years, he lived in Damascus, where he wrote Al Azif before his sudden and mysterious death in 738.

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).

After this attempted suppression, the work was "only heard of furtively" until it was translated from Greek into Latin by Olaus Wormius. (Lovecraft gives the date of this edition as 1228, though the real-life Danish scholar Olaus Wormius lived from 1588 to 1624.) Both the Latin and Greek text, the History relates, were banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, though Latin editions were apparently published in 15th century Germany and 17th century Spain. A Greek edition was printed in Italy in the first half of the 16th century.

The Elizabethan magician John Dee (1527-c. 1609) allegedly translated the bookbut Lovecraft wrote that this version was never printed and only fragments survive. (The connection between Dee and the Necronomicon was suggested by Lovecraft's friend Frank Belknap Long).

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 century" that "later perished in fire"). The Greek, he writes, version has not been reported "since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692"--an apparent reference to the Salem witch trials.

Appearance and contents

Lovecraft made frequent references to the Necronomicon but 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." Letter to Jim Blish and William Miller, Jr., quoted in Joshi, "Afterword".

It is undoubtedly a substantial text, as proved by its appearance in The Dunwich Horror (1929). In the story, Wilbur Whateley visits 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's appearance and physical dimensions are a mystery. Other than the obvious black letter editions, it is commonly portrayed as bound in leather of various types and having metal clasps. Moreover, editions are sometimes disguised. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, for example, John Merrit pulls down a book labelled Qanoon-e-Islam from Joseph Curwen's bookshelf and discovers to his disquiet that it is actually the Necronomicon.

Locations

According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon", copies of the original Necronomicon were held by only five institutions worldwide:
* The British Museum (later moved to the British Library)
* The Bibliothèque nationale de France
* Widener Library of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts
* The University of Buenos Aires
* The library of the fictional Miskatonic University in the equally fictitious Arkham, Massachusetts

The latter institution holds the Latin translation by Olaus Wormius, printed in Spain in the 17th century.

Other copies, Lovecraft wrote, were kept by private individuals. Wilbur Whateley has a copy in "The Dunwich Horror" (1929). Joseph Curwen, as noted, had a copy in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1941). A version is held in Kingsport in "The Festival" (1925). The provenance of the copy read by the narrator of "The Nameless City" (1921) is unknown; a version is read by the protagonist in "The Hound" (1924).

In the works of Brian Lumley, the occult investigator Titus Crow posseses a copy that is allegedly covered in sweaty human skin.

Hoaxes and alleged translations

Although Lovecraft insisted that the book was pure invention (and other writers invented passages from the book in 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. Pranksters occasionally listed the Necronomicon for sale in book store newsletters or inserted phony entries for the book in library card catalogues.

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 pseudonymic "Simon", had little connection to the fictional Lovecraft Mythos but instead was based on Sumerian mythology. It was later dubbed the "Simon Necronomicon".

A blatant hoax version of the Necronomicon, edited by George Hay, appeared in 1978 and included an introduction by the paranormal researcher and writer Colin Wilson. David Langford described how the book was prepared from a computer analysis of a discovered "cipher text" by 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.

Historical "Books of the Dead", such as the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead or the Tibetan Bardo Thodol, are sometimes described as "real Necronomicons". They should not be confused with the Lovecraft Necronomicon, since their contents are meant to be read or remembered by the dead, rather than to be used by the living to summon the dead. Lovecraft may have been inspired by these books.

Activist Patricia Pulling suggests that some people use the Necronomicon in ritual. In the publication Interviewing Techniques for Adolescents, in a list of questions to be used by police investigating cult-related crimes, the first question is, "Has he read the Necronomicon or is he familiar with it?"The Pulling Report (web site).

Other appearances

In the American horror film "The Evil Dead", and its sequels Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, the Necronomicon ex Mortis is described as a text from ancient Sumeria, "bound in human flesh and inked in human blood", that can resurrect demons and turn humans into monsters. The book is similar in many ways to Lovecraft's, but was not initially inspired by it; writer and director Sam Raimi based the book in his film on Sumerian mythology and the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. The name, however, was taken from the Cthulhu Mythos.Bill Warren, The Evil Dead Companion, pg. 36. First edition, 2000. ISBN 0-312-27501-3.

The song "The Thing That Should Not Be" by heavy metal band Metallica includes two loosely quoted lines from the Necronomicon.

Commercially available versions

* Al Azif: The Necronomicon by L. Sprague de Camp (1973, ISBN 1587150433)
* Necronomicon by "Simon" (1980, ISBN 0380751925)
* H.R. Giger's Necronomicon by H.R. Giger (1991, ISBN 0962344729)
* Necronomicon II by H.R. Giger
* The Necronomicon edited by George Hay (1993, ISBN 1871438160)
* Necronomicon: The Wanderings Of Alhazred by Donald Tyson (2004, ISBN 0738706272)

References

Primary sources

* Definitive version.
*The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
**"The Statement of Randolph Carter"
* Definitive version.
**"The Festival"
**"The Hound"
**"The Nameless City"
* Definitive version.
**"The Dunwich Horror"
*

Secondary sources

Notes

External links

*Egyptian Book of the Dead
*History of the Necronomicon, by H. P. Lovecraft
*Sumerian copy of the Necronomican, a purported translation, circa 1985
*Tibetan Book of the Dead

Necronomicon: Encyclopedia BETA

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