Carcosa

Carcosa is a fictional city in the Ambrose Bierce short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1891). In Bierce's story, the ancient and mysterious city is barely described, and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there.

Its name may be derived from the medieval city of Carcassonne in France.

The King in Yellow

The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers' book of horror short stories published in 1895 entitled The King in Yellow. Chambers had read Bierce's work and had also borrowed a few other names (including Hali and Hastur) from Bierce's work.

In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play (also titled The King in Yellow) which is mentioned several times within them, the city is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its location given is that it said to be located on the shores of Lake Hali in the Hyades. The descriptions given of it, however, make it clear that it must be located on another planet, or possibly even in another universe.

For instance:

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink behind the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies,

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

—"Cassilda's Song" in The King in Yellow Act 1, Scene 2

Associated names

Lake Hali is a misty lake found near the city of Carcosa. In the fictional play The King in Yellow (obliquely described by author Robert W. Chambers in the anthology of short stories of the same title), the mysterious cities of Yhtill and Carcosa stand beside the lake. As with Carcosa, it is referenced in the Cthulhu Mythos stories of Lovecraft and his imitators.

The name Hali apparently originated in Ambrose Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1891) in which Hali is the author of a quote which prefaces the story. It is possible that the Hali referred to is the Urdu poet Maulana Hali. The narrator of the story implies that the person named Hali is now dead (at least in the timeline of the story).

Several other, nearly undescribed places are alluded to in Chambers' writing, among them Hastur, Ythill, and Aldebaran. "Aldebaran" may refer to the star Aldebaran, likely as it is also associated with the mention of the Hyades star cluster, with which it shares space in the night sky. The Yellow Sign, described as a symbol not of any terrestrial language, is supposed to originate from the same place as Carcosa.

Other appearances

Later writers, including H. P. Lovecraft and his many admirers, became great fans of Chambers' work and incorporated the name of Carcosa into their own stories, set in the Cthulhu Mythos. In the stories of August Derleth and a few others Carcosa is the residence of Hastur, identified as a Great Old One rather than a location. Occasionally, Hastur will alter reality and merge parts of Earth into Carcosa, usually bringing along unwilling people as well.

In the short story "More Light", in which James Blish presented his version of a complete text of the play The King in Yellow, Carcosa was described as having four singularities: that it appeared overnight, that no one could tell whether it sat upon the waters of Lake Hali or beyond them on the unseen farther shore, that the rising moon appeared to be in front of the city's towers rather than behind them, and that one knew the city's name to be Carcosa the moment one looked upon it. In Blish's version, Carcosa was created as a city of exile for the King in Yellow, because he was not "king in Aldebaran".

Marion Zimmer Bradley also used the name Carcosa for a city on her fictional planet Darkover. According to her, this usage and the appearance of other distinctive names from Chambers' work dated from her own youthful fascination with "The King in Yellow" and her ambitions to produce her own reconstruction of the play on the basis of the fragments in Chambers' works. Only later did she transform those early fantasy writings into science fiction by relocating them from a parallel earth to a distant world under a red sun. Her brother Paul Edwin Zimmer also used name Carcosa for the home of Istvan Divega the swordmaster in his "Dark Border" series. The series is set in a world where evil has been fenced in by mystic barriers maintained and watched by the 'Hasturs', an immensely powerful clan of beings who possess both mental and mystic powers.

Carcosa Press

Carcosa Press was a specialty publishing firm formed by David Drake, Karl Edward Wagner, and Jim Groce who were concerned that Arkham House would cease publication after the death of its founder, August Derleth. Carcosa put out four collections of pulp horror stories, Manly Wade Wellman's Worse Things Waiting (1975) and Lonely Vigils, Hugh B. Cave's Murgunstrumm and Others (1978), and E. Hoffmann Price's Far Lands, Other Days, all edited by Wagner. The Carcosa Press colophon depicts the silhouette of a towered city in front of three moons.

References

• Harms, Daniel (1998). The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed. ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 1-56882-119-0. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)