Book of Eibon

The Book of Eibon was a book in the Library of St John the Beheaded's collection. When Anne Travers was researching the Great Intelligence, she added this document on her way to finding books on her father's list. (PROSE: Millennial Rites)

Behind the scenes

• The fictional Book of Eibon was first referenced by Clark Ashton Smith. His correspondent, H. P. Lovecraft, later included it in several of his stories, such as The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror in the Museum and The Shadow Out of Time. In the stories it was a large collection of arcane knowledge put together by the Hyperborean wizard Eibon.
• The book in the Library of St John was most likely a translation, though it might have been one of the surviving partial fragments of the original. In Ubbo-Sathla, Smith wrote that the original had gone through a series of translations from the Hyperborean original. There were versions in English, French and Latin, the last translation being titled "Liber Ivonis".

Footnotes