True Detective Pushes 120 Year Old Book, The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers, Onto Amazon Best Sellers Chart

Obscure references to “The Yellow King” in the television crime series True Detective pushed Robert Chambers’ 120 year old collection of short horror stories, The King in Yellow, into fourth place on Amazon’s overall best sellers chart this week, reports Rachel Stewart for The Telegraph. The show features Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as detectives trying to catch a serial killer in Louisiana.

The book is also at the top spot on Amazon UK’s classic horror chart and with the show premiering in the UK this weekend sales are likely to increase.

Jared Shurin from Pornokitsch has written a guide to Chambers, one of his favourite authors, explaining that “The King in Yellow is in the “The King in Yellow” in The King in Yellow.”

He elaborates that the character, The King in Yellow, is in a play titled “The King in Yellow”, which is mentioned in four of Chambers’ short stories in his collection, The King in Yellow. Of those four stories, Shurin recommends “The Repairer of Reputations” and helpfully points out that the rush to buy the book isn’t necessary as the copyright on Chambers’ works has expired and The Yellow King can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.

Source: http://bookslive.co.za