The book that made Chambers and remains the apex of his work was The King in Yellow. While derived from some Ambrose Bierce tales, Chambers created, so to speak, the Carcosa mythos -- its central figure a king in yellow tatters, the talisman of the Yellow Sign, and the mind-corrupting second act of the play "The King in Yellow." As much as Lovecraft expert S.T. Joshi states that H.P.L. developed his Cthulhu Mythos and associated paraphernalia independently, Chambers' creation differs little from it, except that he completely abandoned it after a passing allusion to it in "The Maker of Moons."

S.T. Joshi, in his introduction, and others have suggested that Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allen Poe were Chambers' main influences; I might suggest that the tone of the tales in The King in Yellow might also have been influenced by the "decadent" French writers of weird fiction of the last decade of the 19th century, when Chambers was himself in France. In particular, there are certainly similarities in terms of motifs with the stories collected in Marcel Schwob's Le roi au masque d'or (1892; The King Who Bore the Golden Mask), and in Jean Lorrain's Histoires de masques and Contes d'un buveur d'ether (early 1890s), amongst others.

The first tale in The King in Yellow, "The Repairer of Reputations," is one of the greatest and weirdest tales of delusions of grandeur and paranoia ever written. The characters are chillingly twisted, particularly the absolutely bizarre, but all-knowing Mr. Wilde, grossly disfigured by his mad malevolent cat. In "The Yellow Sign" a man dreams of a mysterious hearse and is obsessed with a loathsome man who inhabits the steps of the church outside his apartment window. When he receives the "Yellow Sign" as much as he fights it, he isn't long for this world. Similarly, in "In the Court of the Dragon" a man is stalked through the narrow streets of Paris by an emissary of the Yellow King. One of loveliest stories is "La Demoiselle d'Ys" where a modern day hunter lost on the moors of Brittany finds shelter and love with the beautiful Jeanne d'Ys in the late 16th century. Here Chambers' has just the right balance of romance and fantasy. But to top it all off are some wonderful weird prose poems in "The Prophet's Paradise" -- in particular, perhaps my favourite weird poem of all, "The Sacrifice":

I went into a field of flowers, whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.

Far afield a woman cried, "I have killed him I loved" and from a jar she poured blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.

Far afield I followed, and on the jar I read a thousand names, while from within the blood bubbled to the brim.

"I have killed him I loved!" she cried. "The world's athirst; now let it drink!" She passed, and far afield I watched her pouring blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.

The next two books, included in their entirety, are In Search of the Unknown (1904), and Police!!! (1915). Here Chambers' main character is a male zoologist who goes around capturing all sorts of odd or mythical creatures, while avoiding entanglements with members of the opposite sex, ranging from scientists' pretty young daughters and pretty young scientific assistants, zoo administrators who are overbearing battleaxes, and scantily-clad blubbering cave women in the wilds of Florida:

With an uncontrollable shout of triumph and delight I pranced towards the huddling cave-girls, arms outspread as though heading a horse or concentrating chickens. And, totally forgetting the uselessness or urbanity and civilised speech as I danced around that lovely but terrified group, "Ladies!" I cried, "do not be alarmed, because I mean only kindness and proper respect. Civilisation calls you from the wilds! Sentiment, pity, piety propel my legs, not the ruthless desire to injure or enslave you! Ladies! You are under the wing of science. An anthropologist is speaking to you! Fear nothing! Rather rejoice! Your wonderful race shall be rescued from extinction -- even if I have to do it myself! Ladies, don't run!" They had suddenly scattered and were now beginning to dodge me. "I come among you bearing the precious promises of education, of religion, of equal franchise, of fashion!"

"Blub-blub!" they whimpered continuing to dodge me.

"Yes!" I cried in an excess of transcendental enthusiasm. "Blub-blub! And though I do not comprehend the exquisite simplicity of your primeval speech, I answer with all my heart, 'Blub-blub.'"

When I undertook to review The Yellow Sign and Other Stories, I had already read about 75% of its contents as well as half a dozen other novels. Still, I think I gained some insights into Chambers' work which I wouldn't have had without rereading and reading fresh material by him. S.T. Joshi in his introduction points out that Chambers' later "for profit" romance novels are so bad as to not even be useful as a reflection of the times in which they were written. I think that a neglected aspect of Chambers' work is his work as a Nature writer. Chambers, besides being a well trained artist, was certainly an avid outdoorsman and a very competent amateur naturalist, even writing some Nature books for children (apparently amongst his rarest works). Chambers' descriptions of wild locales, particularly the forests of the Northeastern United States, and the wild, barren landscapes of Brittany show both his artists' eye and his obvious appreciation for the grandeur of Nature. While this aspect of his writing is rarely, if ever, the foremost aspect of any of his works, it is perhaps the quality of his work least dimmed by his shift to literary commercialism. From the mysterious forest glade in "The Maker of Moons" (1896), the Central New York forests of the late 18th century in The Hidden Children (1914), to a female Civil War spy's escape through the forests of Pennsylvania in the posthumously published Secret Service Operator 13 (1934), Chambers' descriptions of the forest remain rich and heartfelt.

So, if you only want to read Chambers' work with a view to simply understanding the Poe-Bierce-Chambers-Lovecraft continuum, you will be safe enough simply reading The King in Yellow (see e-text links) and perhaps "The Maker of Moons." However, if you want to understand both the progression of his work and sample his weird, humorous, and even romantic fiction, or simply want a handy compendium of his short works of imaginative fiction The Yellow Sign and Other Stories is certainly for you. Either way The Yellow Sign and Other Stories is great value for your money, considering the scarcity of some of the material reprinted.

"Introduction" by S.T. Joshi

from The King in Yellow

"The Repairer of Reputations"

"The Mask"

"In the Court of the Dragon"

"The Yellow Sign"

"The Demoiselle d'Ys"

"The Prophet's Paradise" (poems)

from The Maker of Moons

"The Maker of Moons"

"A Pleasant Evening"

from The Mystery of Choice

"The Purple Emperor"

"Pompe Funèbre"

"The Messenger"

"The White Shadow"

"Passeur"

"The Key to Grief"

In Search of the Unknown complete

from The Tracer of Lost Persons

Chapters 17-20

from The Tree of Heaven

"The Carpet of Belshazzar"

"The Sign of Venus"

"The Case of Mr. Helmer"

"The Bridal Pair"

"Out of the Depths"

Police!!! complete