"History of the Necronomicon" is short piece by H. P. Lovecraft laying out a backstory for his fictional eldritch tome, the Necronomicon, and its author Abdul Alhazred. Lovecraft wrote it in 1927, largely for his own use, to keep his references to the book consistent;[1] it was published as a pamphlet in 1938, after Lovecraft's death, by The Rebel Press.
The piece provides biographical details about Alhazred, including his origin in Sanaa, Yemen; his travels to Babylon, Memphis, Irem, and the Nameless City; his worship of Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu; and his "final death or disappearance" in Damascus in 738 A.D., when he was, according to the 12th century biographer Ebn Khallikan, "seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses."
The account gives an original Arabic title for the Necronomicon, Al-Azif, and translates it as referring to "that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos’d to be the howling of daemons." It lists three translations of the work: into Greek in 950 by Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople (who gave it its current title); into Latin by Olaus Wormius in 1228; and into English by Dr. John Dee. The Greek translation was printed in Italy in first half of the 16th century, though no copy has been reported since one was burned in Salem in 1692. The Latin version was printed twice, in the 15th century ("evidently in Germany") and 17th century ("prob. Spanish"). The book has been banned at least twice, by Patriarch Michael in 1050 and Pope Gregory IX in 1232.
Lovecraft's sketch lists five libraries known to have copies: The British Museum, which holds the 15th century edition, and Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale, Harvard's Widener Library, Miskatonic University at Arkham, and the University of Buenos Ayres. It notes that are probably private copies held in secret, including a 15th century Latin edition rumored to be "part of the collection of a celebrated American millionaire." A Greek text was whispered to belong to the Pickman family of Salem until Richard Upton Pickman's disappearance in 1926.
Continuity[]
- Lovecraft would expand some parts of the history in his correspondence (Selected Letters 2.307, letter to James Blish & William Miller 13 May 1936)
- "Azif" is the name of insects noise attributed to howling of daemons (HPL: Selected Letters 2.307, ADJ: Vathek note by Henley)
References[]
- ↑ An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, "A History of the Necronomicon," by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (Hippocampus Press, 2004).