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 [from http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/nechist.htm ]
   
Subject: History of the Necronomicon
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                       By H.P. Lovecraft (1927)
     ____________________________________________________________
   
   (There has been some difficulty over the date of this essay. Most
   give the date as 1936, following the Laney-Evans (1943)
   bibliography entry for the pamphlet version produced by the Rebel
   Press. This date, as can easily be ascertained from the fact that
   this was a "Limited Memorial Edition", is spurious (Lovecraft
   died in 1937); in fact, it dates to 1938. The correct date of
   1927 comes from the final draft of the essay, which appears on a
   letter addressed to Clark Ashton Smith ("To the Curator of the
   Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, with the Concoctor's [?] Comments"). The
   letter is dated April 27, 1927 and was apparently kept by
   Lovecraft to circulate as needed.)
     ____________________________________________________________
   
     Original title Al Azif -- azif being the word used by Arabs to
     designate that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos'd to
     be the howling of daemons.
     
     Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who
     is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade
     caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and
     the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone
     in the great southern desert of Arabia -- the Roba el Khaliyeh
     or "Empty Space" of the ancients -- and "Dahna" or "Crimson"
     desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by
     protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert
     many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who
     pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred
     dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was
     written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.)
     many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by
     Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by
     an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly
     before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his
     madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen fabulous
     Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins
     of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and
     secrets of a race older than mankind. [The Rebel Press edition
     adds this editor's note: "A full description of the nameless
     city, and the annals and secrets of its one time inhabitants
     will be found in the story THE NAMELESS CITY, published in the
     first issue of Fanciful Tales, and written by the author of
     this outline."] He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping
     unknown entities whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.
     
     In A.D. 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho'
     surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age,
     was secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of
     Constantinople under the title Necronomicon. For a century it
     impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts, when it
     was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch Michael. After this
     it is only heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus Wormius made a
     Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text
     was printed twice -- once in the fifteenth century in
     black-letter (evidently in Germany) and once in the
     seventeenth (prob. Spanish) -- both editions being without
     identifying marks, and located as to time and place by
     internal typographical evidence only. The work both Latin and
     Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, shortly after its
     Latin translation, which called attention to it. The Arabic
     original was lost as early as Wormius' time, as indicated by
     his prefatory note; [the Rebel Press edition adds
     paranthetically: "there is, however, a vague account of a
     secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the present
     century, but later perished in fire" -- a transparent
     reference to Clark Ashton Smith's tale "The Return of the
     Sorcerer". Indeed, Lovecraft says in a letter to Richard F.
     Searight (1935) "This 'history' must be modified in one
     respect -- since Klarkash-Ton's 'Return of the Sorceror' (pub
     in Strange Tales 3 yrs. ago) tells of the survival of an
     Arabic text until modern times."] and no sight of the Greek
     copy -- which was printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550 --
     has been reported since the burning of a certain Salem man's
     library in 1692. An English translation made by Dr. Dee was
     never printed, and exists only in fragments recovered from the
     original manuscript. [This sentence does not occur in the
     first draft of the essay. It was added later, after Frank
     Belknap Long had quoted from "John Dee's Necronomicon" in his
     tale "The Space Eaters" (1928).] Of the Latin texts now
     existing one (15th cent.) is known to be in the British Museum
     under lock and key, while another (17th cent.) is in the
     Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. A seventeenth-century edition
     is in the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the library of
     Miskatonic University at Arkham. Also in the library of the
     University of Buenos Ayres. Numerous other copies probably
     exist in secret, and a fifteenth-century one is persistently
     rumoured to form part of the collection of a celebrated
     American millionaire. A still vaguer rumour credits the
     preservation of a sixteenth-century Greek text in the Salem
     family of Pickman; but if it was so preserved, it vanished
     with the artist R.U. Pickman, who disappeared early in 1926.
     The book is rigidly suppressed by the authorities of most
     countries, and by all branches of organised ecclesiasticism.
     Reading leads to terrible consequences. It was from rumours of
     this book (of which relatively few of the general public know)
     that R.W. Chambers is said to have derived the idea of his
     early novel The King in Yellow.
     
                               Chronology
     
     Al Azif written circa 730 A.D. at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred
     Tr. to Greek 950 A.D. as Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas
     Burnt by Patriarch Michael 1050 (i.e., Greek text). Arabic
     text now lost.
     Olaus translates Gr. to Latin 1228
     1232 Latin ed. (and Gr.) suppr. by Pope Gregory IX
     14... Black-letter printed edition (Germany)
     15... Gr. text printed in Italy
     16... Spanish reprint of Latin text
     ____________________________________________________________
   
   This should be supplemented with a letter written to Clark Ashton
   Smith for November 27, 1927:
   
     I have had no chance to produce new material this autumn, but
     have been classifying notes & synopses in preparation for some
     monstrous tales later on. In particular I have drawn up some
     data on the celebrated & unmentionable Necronomicon of the mad
     Arab Abdul Alhazred! It seems that this shocking blasphemy was
     produced by a native of Sanaá, in Yemen, who flourished about
     700 A.D. & made many mysterious pilgrimages to Babylon's
     ruins, Memphis's catacombs, & the devil-haunted & untrodden
     wastes of the great southern deserts of Arabia -- the Roba el
     Khaliyeh, where he claimed to have found records of things
     older than mankind, & to have learnt the worship of
     Yog-Sothoth & Cthulhu. The book was a product of Abdul's old
     age, which was spent in Damascus, & the original title was Al
     Azif -- azif (cf. Henley's notes to Vathek) being the name
     applied to those strange night noises (of insects) which the
     Arabs attribute to the howling of daemons. Alhazred died -- or
     disappeared -- under terrible circumstances in the year 738.
     In 950 Al Azif was translated into Greek by the Byzantine
     Theodorus Philetas under the title Necronomicon, & a century
     later it was burnt at the order of Michael, Patriarch of
     Constantinople. It was translated into Latin by Olaus in 1228,
     but placed on the Index Expurgatorius by Pope Gregory IX in
     1232. [Note that this does not appear in the final version of
     the essay. The explanation is that the Index did not exist at
     this time, as further research must have revealed to
     Lovecraft.] The original Arabic was lost before Olaus' time, &
     the last known Greek copy perished in Salem in 1692. The work
     was printed in the 15th, 16th, & 17th centuries, but few
     copies are extant. Wherever existing, it is carefully guarded
     for the sake of the world's welfare & sanity. Once a man read
     through the copy in the library of Miskatonic University at
     Arkham -- read it through & fled wild-eyed into the hills
     ...... but that is another story!
     ____________________________________________________________
   
   In yet another letter (to James Blish and William Miller, 1936),
   Lovecraft says:
   
     You are fortunate in securing copies of the hellish and
     abhorred Necronomicon. Are they the Latin texts printed in
     Germany in the fifteenth century, or the Greek version printed
     in Italy in 1567, or the Spanish translation of 1623? Or do
     these copies represent different texts?
     
   Note that this is not entirely consistent with the accounts given
   earlier.
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                           Annotated Version
                                   
             From Kendrick Kerwin Chua's Necronomicon FAQ
   
                 With further annotation by Dan Clore
   
   (Note: I have substituted the corrected text for the older,
   corrupt text used in the FAQ. -- D.C.)
     ____________________________________________________________
   
     "History of the Necronomicon", by H.P. Lovecraft, written in
     1937 with footnotes and references by Kendrick Kerwin Chua,
     1993.
     
   See above for the date of this essay.
   
     Original title Al Azif -- azif being the word used by Arabs to
     designate that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos'd to
     be the howling of daemons.
     
     Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who
     is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade
     caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and
     the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone
     in the great southern desert of Arabia -- the Roba el Khaliyeh
     or "Empty Space" of the ancients -- and "Dahna" or "Crimson"
     desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by
     protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert
     many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who
     pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred
     dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was
     written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.)
     many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by
     Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by
     an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly
     before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his
     madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen fabulous
     Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins
     of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and
     secrets of a race older than mankind. [The Rebel Press edition
     adds this editor's note: "A full description of the nameless
     city, and the annals and secrets of its one time inhabitants
     will be found in the story THE NAMELESS CITY, published in the
     first issue of Fanciful Tales, and written by the author of
     this outline."] He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping
     unknown entities whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.
     
     (9) Note already how Lovecraft skirts the fine line between
     campy parody and seriousness. In Lovecraft at Last, Conover
     writes that Lovecraft wrote the history in order to allow
     people with any understanding of Arab studies to see through
     the mock scholarship. Note also the inconsistencies here with
     the description of Al-Hazred in the Simon Necronomicon.
     Al-Hazred there supposedly witnessed the horrible rituals at
     Masshu, a mythical island at the mouth of the Euphrates upon
     which Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, supposedly still
     resides today. Whereas Lovecraft describes the Crimson Desert
     as the place where Al-Hazred witnessed much of what he wrote
     down. Note also that in the Simon version, Al-Hazred warns
     against worshipping "Iak-Sakkak" and "Kutulu", whereas
     Lovecrafts claims he did just that. Note also the improper use
     of the A.D. prefix until the next paragraph. KKC
     
     In A.D. 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho'
     surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age,
     was secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of
     Constantinople under the title Necronomicon.
     
     (10) Another inconsistency. Simon claims that Al-Hazred
     rendered the Necronomicon in Greek first, rather than Arabic.
     KKC
     
   I haven't been able to find this claim in Simon's text, but he
   does claim that the manuscript he translated is a Greek version.
   As noted below, Lovecraft states that the Greek version was lost.
   
     For a century it impelled certain experimenters to terrible
     attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch
     Michael. After this it is only heard of furtively, but (1228)
     Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle
     Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice -- once in the
     fifteenth century in black-letter (evidently in Germany) and
     once in the seventeenth (prob. Spanish) -- both editions being
     without identifying marks, and located as to time and place by
     internal typographical evidence only.
     
     (11) Interesting to note that Lovecraft does not say outright
     that someone in our time had apparently found and identified
     these renditions of the book. KKC
     
     The work both Latin and Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in
     1232, shortly after its Latin translation, which called
     attention to it.
     
     (12) The archivist has thusfar been unable to find Al Azif,
     Necronomicon, or anything even remotely similar on any of the
     forbidden book lists of the era. But do consider that paper
     records from the 13th century are incomplete and unpreserved,
     to say the least. KKC
     
     The Arabic original was lost as early as Wormius' time, as
     indicated by his prefatory note; [the Rebel Press edition adds
     paranthetically: "there is, however, a vague account of a
     secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the present
     century, but later perished in fire" -- a transparent
     reference to Clark Ashton Smith's tale "The Return of the
     Sorcerer".] and no sight of the Greek copy -- which was
     printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550 -- has been reported
     since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692.
     
     (13) Again, Simon claims to have translated a Greek edition.
     KKC
     
     An English translation made by Dr. Dee was never printed, and
     exists only in fragments recovered from the original
     manuscript.
     
     (14) An internal Lovecraft inconsistency. In his short story
     "The Dunwich Horror", the old wizard called Whately utilizes a
     Dee translation of the Necronomicon in order to produce
     children for Yog-Sothoth. A complete listing of John Dee's
     books reveals none titled Necronomicon. KKC
     
   This is not an inconsistency, as old Wizard Whateley uses an
   incomplete manuscript of the Dee translation. Wilbur Whateley,
   Yog-Sothoth's son, requires the complete edition housed in the
   Miskatonic University Library to fill in the gaps in the
   fragmentary Dee version.
   
     Of the Latin texts now existing one (15th cent.) is known to
     be in the British Museum under lock and key, while another
     (17th cent.) is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. A
     seventeenth-century edition is in the Widener Library at
     Harvard, and in the library of Miskatonic University at
     Arkham. Also in the library of the University of Buenos Ayres.
     
     (15) Other than the Harvard copy, which the archivist knows
     for sure does not exist, and the fact that Miskatonic
     University is totally fictional, I cannot say with absolute
     certainty that the other locations Lovecraft lists do not have
     some copy of a book they may call the Necronomicon. Interested
     parties may contact the archivist to confirm or deny posession
     of the book, if they wish. KKC
     
   They don't.
   
     Numerous other copies probably exist in secret, and a
     fifteenth-century one is persistently rumoured to form part of
     the collection of a celebrated American millionaire. A still
     vaguer rumour credits the preservation of a sixteenth-century
     Greek text in the Salem family of Pickman; but if it was so
     preserved, it vanished with the artist R.U. Pickman, who
     disappeared early in 1926. The book is rigidly suppressed by
     the authorities of most countries, and by all branches of
     organised ecclesiasticism. Reading leads to terrible
     consequences. It was from rumours of this book (of which
     relatively few of the general public know) that R.W. Chambers
     is said to have derived the idea of his early novel The King
     in Yellow.
     
     (16) Much of the latter part of this paragraph is in fact
     derived from Lovecraft's own short stories, most notably "The
     Picture in the House", which featured the sadistic Robert
     Pickman character. Also, Lovecraft repeatedly cites Chambers'
     book as his main inspiration, although he created the
     Necronomicon before he first read Chambers. KKC
     
   The story featuring Robert Upton Pickman is, of course,
   "Pickman's Model", not "The Picture in the House". See above on
   Chambers. I am unaware of any serious statement by Lovecraft
   attesting to any significant influence from Chambers' work.
     ____________________________________________________________
   
   Have any comments on this material?
   Please inform me: clore@columbia-center.org.
     ____________________________________________________________
  
EOF