Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87664 in Books
• Published on: 1995-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Oooh what's that frothing in the corner
Well, I got the book in the post and had a quick look though it. Within ten minutes I had performed my first incantation and had Cthulhu in my living room. We watched a bit of TV and chatted about Shub Niggurath's upcoming divorce case, and eventually I shelled out £5 to get him a taxi back to R'lyeh.

I am hoping soon that the book will enable me to prattle on in poor English about Wicca and other recently created "religions" along with my other erstwhile collegues on this site.

The only thing that I found disappointing about this tome was the ease which I bought it. Amazon could at least make you spend ten years in Tibet searching for it before sending the book out.

Ripping yarns
This book was not written by H.P. Lovercarft and nor is it some ancient tale of ghoulishness. The original Necronomicaon was a fictional book described by H.P. Lovecraft in his short story The Hound, and later in The Nameless City. Other authors latterly mentioned it with Lovecraft's approval.

There have also been several hoaxes over the years, including this very book by 'Simon' in the 70's. Although this version by Simon, and its subsequent sequels, has little in common with Lovecrafts original Mythos. Robert Turner wrote a version that is far closer to Lovecraft's original descriptions.

I'll give this book 4 Stars as it's a decent hoax and pretty creepy read. The fact that there are people convinced of Necronomicons existence as a real ancient book almost one hundred years later would, I'm sure, make Lovecraft happy.

The informed review
In this review i will explain what the Necronomicon really is.
H.PLovecraft was an author of short horror stories in the 1920's-30's.Instedof using ghosts or vampires etc Lovecraft put his protaganists at themercy of the chaos of the universe.a common theme in his writing was thecult of Cthulhu (Cthulhu being a gigantic monstrosity from out of spaceregarded by his followers to be a god).The cult of Cthulhu was only knownto its followers,who practiced bizzare rituals etc in anticipation of hiscoming.Lovecraft invented the necronomican as the only writings about thecthulhu myth which his charecters could learn from and invented the authorthe mad arab abdul alhazred,he used the necronomicon in many stories,sodecided to actually write it! and attribute it to the mad arab ,he came upwith a whole history for it right down to the years it was supposedleyprinted and the languages it was printed in (greak,latin,etc)the namederives from astronomicon a work on astronomy by the greek poetManilius,he even came up with it's arabic name al-azif.
it is not agenuine occult book,it was never ment to be,it is a companion to his shortstorys,back story.to enjoy this book you should read lovecrafts storysfirst(they are the best horror storys ive ever read)
also the necronomicon always gets confused with the book of thedead(probably due to the evil dead films)its not the same book.The book ofthe dead is real it is a ancient Egyptian manual for the burial of thedead. its true title is the book of coming forth by day (if my memoryserves) and you can get modern re-prints of it.