Lovecraft’s given history of the secret and terrible text recalls its authorship by one Abd al Hazred (Abdul Alhazred), the “Mad Arab”, originally titled Al Azif (A cryptic reference to those nocturnal insects which presage evil related to the Lord of the Flies). That is why it’s more fun to invent mythical works. Howard is responsible for Friedrich von Junzt and his Unaussprechlichen Kulten… As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes– in all truth they don’t amount to much. Robert Bloch devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis, while the Book of Eibon is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith‘s. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I invented these names myself. Now about the “terrible and forbidden books”– I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. Lovecraft that became a tradition when picked up by friends and fellow Weird Tales authors who also invented their own dark tomes and manuals of black magic. The original Necronomicon is a fictitious grimoire originating in the stories of H.P. The proprietor is a queer old man with pallid, green-hued skin who reluctantly allows you access to the back room where he keeps, under wraps of yellow satin, an ancient book of magic. Imagine you are lost in the old part of the city, walking down a mist-enshrouded alley and you happen across a mysterious, nameless bookshop. The Necronomicon appears quite often in scary stories.
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