
Originally Posted by
myssi
(off topic)
If anyone wants to know what the Necronomicon is, it's a fictitious book of dark magic
used in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.
Wow, myssi, i'm impressed. Most people have never even heard of Lovecraft.
As a side note, some guy wrote a supposed "authentic' version in 1978 (The "Simon Translation."
The snippet below can easily be found on the Internet...
Lovecraft said that he invented the name Abdul Alhazred after reading Lang's Arabian Nights as a child; but elsewhere he said that, as an adult, he asked the family lawyer to make up an Arab name. BTW, the Arabic is wrong: the -ul of Abdul is redundant with the Al of Alhazred. A better rendering would have been Abd-el-Hazred although Joshi calls that "much less charismatic."
In 1927, Lovecraft wrote the "History of the Necronomicon" as a tongue-in-cheek history of his mythical book. He said he did it to give "a sort of air of verisimilitude." Doubtless also to be sure that all the other writers who were making reference to the Necronomicon would be consistent.
According to Lovecraft's "History," the Necronomicon was written in the 8th Century AD by the "mad Arab" Alhazred, and was translated into Greek under the title Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas in AD 950, then into Latin by Olias Wormius in 1228. (The real Wormius--a Danish doctor--lived from 1588 to 1654.) An "imperfect" English translation was supposedly made by Dr. John Dee (1527-1600), an English mathematician and astrologer. And so on. Lovecraft thus created a detailed background for his imaginary book.
When fans wrote Lovecraft in the 1930s to ask if these books were real, he replied truthfully (as quoted above.) In a 1936 letter, for instance, he says, "I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I invented these names myself."
Could he have been lying? Doubtful. Joshi says that he seems to have been a very truthful person. It would have a been a long-standing and consistent lie. But more telling is that there is simply no other historical reference to a "Necronomicon" or to "Alhazred" until Lovecraft started writing about them. Nor to the various Old Ones (like Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth)--no mention anywhere before Lovecraft's.
Long after Lovecraft's death, several books appeared, sold privately or in bookstores, purporting to be new translations (or rediscovered copies) of the Necronomicon. Most of these are clearly spoofs or in-jokes. There are just under a dozen versions floating about, including one by Lin Carter and one by L. Sprague DeCamp, famous science fiction writers in their own right. All of them have an initial appearance that post-dates Lovecraft, usually by over 35 years.
There is the "Necronomicon of George Hay" (first published in 1970), claiming to be the English translation by John Dee, taken from a copy in the British Museum. Joshi calls it "one of the most exquisite hoaxes of modern times." Critic Colin Wilson (who wrote the intro to the Hay Necronomicon) admitted in a 1984 fanzine that it was a joke, concocted by him and a few friends. The most commonly found version nowadays, and the only one that is not openly admitted by the author to be a joke or spoof, is the "Simon Necronomicon," published in 1977. The introduction claims it to be a translation of a Sumerian original, but it mentions gods and stories that are much later. There are other internal inconsistencies as well. Dan Clore says, "These hoax Necronomicons frequently display an utter lack of verisimilitude [in their content and in their introductions] where a little research would have provided a much more convincing story."
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