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In Search of the Unknown
Hardcover
Publisher: Bibliotech Press
Published: Aug 10 2024
Pages: 190
Weight: 0.89
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Loosely connected stories of whimsy and mystery, mostly involving an amusing young man very susceptible to young women and to the wackadoodle in life. A story about a search for the great auk is followed by stories of increasingly unlikely encounters with increasingly off-the-rails situations. There's a layer of dry wit here that keeps the stories from tilting over into romantic slosh. Chambers sometimes overdoes descriptions, but often he finds the perfect phrase to make the setting vivid.
What was surprising is that Chambers' female characters are competent, interesting, and self-assured--not what I expected of young women in a book from this time period. They take on big, bitey snakes (a phrase that got repeated in one of the stories), mammoths, and invisible people with a lot of aplomb. (Unfortunately, Chambers gives the one black character with a speaking part some cringeworthy dialect.) (Pat)
About the author:
Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 - December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.
Chambers was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was a fellow student. Chambers studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter, written in 1887 in Munich. His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of Art Nouveau short stories published in 1895. This included several famous weird short stories which are connected by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title, which drives those who read it insane. E. F. Bleiler described The King in Yellow as one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction. It was also strongly admired by H. P. Lovecraft and his circle.
Chambers's main work of historical fiction was a series of novels set during the Franco-Prussian War. These novels were The Red Republic (1895, centring on the Paris Commune), Lorraine (1898), Ashes of Empire (1898) and Maids of Paradise (1903). Chambers wrote Special Messenger (1909), Ailsa Paige (1910) and Whistling Cat (1932), novels set during the American Civil War. Chambers also wrote Cardigan (1901), a historical novel for younger readers, set at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers had one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status. Chambers' romance novels often featured intimate relationships between caddish men and sexually willing women, resulting in some reviewers accusing Chambers' works of promoting immorality. Many of his works were also serialised in magazines. (wikipedia.org)
16 different editions
Also available
Also from
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow: Annotated & Illustrated Edition - The Weird Classic Behind True Detective and the Cthulhu Mythos
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The King in Yellow: The Original 1895 Unabridged and Complete Edition (Robert W. Chambers Classics)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The King in Yellow: The Original 1895 Unabridged and Complete Edition (Robert W. Chambers Classics)
Chambers, Robert W.
Hardcover
The King in Yellow: A Classic of Cosmic Horror, Madness, and Forbidden Art
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
Can Such Things Still Be? - Complete Literary Guide to the King in Yellow
Chambers, Robert W.
Lovecraft, H. P.
Bierce, Ambrose
Paperback
The King in Yellow: A Classic of Cosmic Horror, Madness, and Forbidden Art
Chambers, Robert W.
Hardcover
The King in Yellow: A Classic Collection of Supernatural and Cosmic Horror Stories - Madness, Mystery, and the Unknown
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Robert Chambers Collection: Volume I. The King in Yellow and Other Works
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Yellowing: The King in Yellow & the Decay of the 19th Century
Chambers, Robert W.
Parsons, John Denham
Paperback
आइला पाजी: Ailsa Paige, Hindi edition
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
Fifteen Ghost Stories: Famous Modern Ghost Stories
Blackwood, Algernon
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Streets of Ascalon: Episodes in the Unfinished Career of Richard Quarren, Esq.
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The red republic; a romance of the commune. By: Robert W. Chambers: Novel (World's classic's)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The maker of moons. By: Robert W. Chambers, and By: Walt Whitman: The Maker of Moons is an 1896 short story collection by Robert W. Chambers w
Whitman, Walt
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
A king and a few dukes: a romance (1896). By: Robert W. Chambers: Novel (Original Classics)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Mystery of Choice (1897). By: Robert W. Chambers: Short story collections (Original Classics)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Firing Line (1908). By: Robert W. Chambers: Novel (Original Classics)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Business of Life (1913). By: Robert W. Chambers, illustrated By: Charles Dana Gibson: novel (illustrated)
Gibson, Charles Dana
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The maids of Paradise a novel. By: Robert W. Chambers: Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871 (illustrated)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
Who goes There! (1915). By: Robert W. Chambers, illustrated By: A. I. Keller (Arthur Ignatius Keller (1866 - 1924)).: World War, 1914-1918
Chambers, Robert W.
Keller, A. I.
Paperback
A young man in a hurry, and other short stories. By: Robert W. Chambers: Novel (illustrated)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
Barbarians (1917). By: Robert W. Chambers, illustrated By: A. I. Keller (1866 - 1924): Novel (World's classic's)
Keller, A. I.
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Little Red Foot . By: Robert W. Chambers: Novel (World's classic's)
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The Red Republic, a romance of the commune(1895), by Robert W Chambers: Robert William Chambers
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The King in Yellow (1895) by: Robert W. Chambers /, horror, supernatural /
Chambers, Robert W.
Paperback
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, Fiction, Horror, Short Stories
Chambers, Robert W.
Hardcover
2 Detectives: The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont / Mr. Keen, the Tracer of Lost Persons
Chambers, Robert W.
Barr, Robert
Paperback
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