Books like “The King in Yellow”

What to read after “The King in Yellow” by Robert W. Chambers: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
H. P. Lovecraft · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A Penguin Classics selection of Lovecraft's stories, from 'Dagon' and 'The Picture in the House' to 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Colour Out of Space' and 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'. Scholars, sailors and dreamers glimpse buried civilisations and vast indifferent forces, and the knowledge slowly takes their minds apart.
2
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · 1892
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
A woman is confined to an upstairs room by her physician husband and told to rest. Cut off from work and company, she becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper, convinced that a figure is trapped behind its pattern and that she must set it free.
3
The Fisherman
John Langan · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
After his wife's death, Abe takes up fishing and befriends a coworker who has also lost his spouse. Dan suggests a trip to Dutchman's Creek, a spot with a dark reputation. There they meet a fisherman trying to land a primordial creature, and are offered a chance to recover the people they have lost.
4
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
M. R. James · 1904
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Forbidden Knowledge
Eight ghost stories in which scholars and clergymen uncover things better left alone. An old manuscript, a whistled tune and a locked country house each hold a presence that follows the people who found it back into ordinary life.
5
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Four women cross into Area X, a coastal region sealed off for decades, to survey it as the twelfth expedition. The biologist records the abandoned bunker, the writing on its walls and the animals that seem almost aware. She also knows her husband went in before her and came back changed.
6
The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
New York, 1924. Tommy Tester runs small errands and plays guitar for money, one of the few Black men willing to do business with a sorcerer. Hired by a strange wealthy man in Flatbush, he is drawn toward the Sleeping King and the Great Old Ones, and chooses what kind of power he is willing to serve.
7
The City We Became
N. K. Jemisin · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- Creeping Dread
In a New York where great cities are born as living avatars, a homeless artist becomes the spirit of the city. As a hostile force called the Woman in White spreads through the streets, five avatars of the boroughs must unite to defend a city still struggling to be born.
8
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson · 1962
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
Eighteen-year-old Merricat lives with her sister and uncle in a large house outside a village that despises them, after the rest of the family died years earlier from poison. When a cousin arrives hoping to claim the estate, the careful order of Merricat's world is broken.
9
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton · 1973
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
A collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, written across her career and gathered in one volume. Old houses, railway carriages and country estates hold grudges, apparitions return with unfinished business, and the supernatural creeps into the lives of people who insist they do not believe in it.
10
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski · 2000
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A tattoo artist assembles the scattered notes of a blind old man who wrote a study of a film. The film records a family discovering that their house is larger inside than out, with a hallway that opens onto darkness where the rules of space break down.
11
The Beetle
Richard Marsh · 1897
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
A strange, insect-like creature arrives in London bent on revenge against a member of Parliament, and its powers reach into the lives of everyone near him. The story is told through several witnesses who each encounter the being and try to stop it.
12
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James · 1898
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
A young governess takes charge of two children at a remote country house and soon notices figures watching from the grounds and the tower. She becomes convinced the children are being influenced by something from beyond the grave, though no one else confirms what she sees.