The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895.

The macabre character gradually fades away during the remaining stories, and the last three are written in the romantic fiction style common to Chambers' later work.

For example, "Cassilda's Song" comes from Act 1, Scene 2 of the play:[8] Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa.

It is also stated, in "The Repairer of Reputations", that the final moment of the first act involves the character Camilla's "agonized scream and [...] awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa".

Chambers usually gives only scattered hints of the contents of the full play, as in this extract from "The Repairer of Reputations": He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades.

Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, he began the wonderful story of the Last King.A similar passage occurs in "The Yellow Sign", in which two protagonists have read The King in Yellow: Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fog-wrapped city.

Lovecraft borrowed Chambers' method of only vaguely referring to supernatural events, entities, and places, thereby allowing his readers to imagine the horror for themselves.

The first season of True Detective, a 2014 American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, references a figure called "the Yellow King".