The King in Yellow

The King in Yellow was a verse-play written and published in Paris in the 1890s. It was horrifying to its audience, though the story was not a Gotchic romance, penny dreadful, or Jacobean tragedy. Its anonymous author wrote it while sleep-writing, which was an increasingly common affliction among writers and painters in France at the time.

The story contained the characters Cassilida and Naotalba, who sang the song Naotalba's Song. It also featured the eponymous King in Yellow.

However, after only one performance, the French authorities banned the play. David Clayton considered himself lucky to have only seen the first act, in which he noted that no characters died. After watching it, he found himself writing and rewriting the first act in his sleep. He felt dread toward the idea of beginning the second act. Others were similarly affected. (PROSE: The Death of Art)

Behind the scenes

• The King in Yellow originated from the eponymous 1895 anthology by Robert W. Chalmers. Simon Bucher-Jones, author of The Death of Art, wrote his own reconstruction of the play, which he both published as a book and serialised as a comic.