The Repairer of Reputations
Set in a totalitarian American of the not-too-distant future where a young man named Hildred Castaigne has undergone severe changes in personality due to a head injury sustained after falling from his mount. Committed to an asylum, he comes across a censored play titled “The King in Yellow” which supposed has the power to drive people made. Ultimately, Hildred become a recluse obsessing over archaic texts with the help of one Mr. Wilde. Mr. Wilde fancies himself the titular Repairer of Reputations in his role as the phantom puppetmaster controlling a global conspiracy. With the help of Mr. Wilde, Hildred is convinced that he will ultimately take his rightful place as the last king of "The Imperial Dynasty of America.”
The Mask
Three artistic friends living in Paris: Alec, the narrator. Genevieve, the painter. Boris, sculptor and partner to Genevieve. Boris relates to his friends about his discovery of a seemingly magical liquid capable of transforming anything submerged within it into a marble simulation. Fresh from reading “The King in Yellow” Genevieve steps into the liquid and becomes a statue. Boris kills himself and Alec moves into their house with the marble statue of Genevieve ever present but secluded in a locked room. After a few months, the truth of the liquid is revealed: the effects are temporary. Genevieve resumes her place among the living flesh and falls in love with Alec.
In the Court of the Dragon
A strange, mysterious and ambiguous tale of a man who becomes overly disturbed by a church organist who looks at him with unrestricted malevolence and whom he encounters with dread several times while making his way home. Suddenly, he awakes back in the church and puts the entire horrific experience down to the effects of a bad dream. That vision literally crumbles around him as he comes face to face with death and the King in Yellow appears to whisper “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”
The Yellow Sign
An artist named Scott and his muse, Tessie, move closer to intimacy as the story progresses and turns on the discovery of never-totally-described Yellow Sign by the model. After presenting the mysterious glyph as a gift to Scott which sets off a horrific descent into nightmares and dreamscapes culminating in the procurement of a copy of “The King in Yellow” which proceeds to escalate the growing dread and apprehension.
The Demoiselle D’Ys
Another movement toward increasingly intense intimacy sets an American in Brittany named Philip and the Demoiselle D'Ys (Jeanne) toward an appointment with tragedy. Turns out that she’s a ghost who died of a broken heart after losing him centuries before. The cycle appears likely to continue.
The Prophets' Paradise
A collection of prose poems that together form a story within the larger story that is created by the connectedness of the short stories. The poems are constructed in a style that brings forth excerpts from the fictional play The King in Yellow and marked by a precise motif of repetition and symmetry.
The Street of the Four Winds
Back to the artistic scene of Paris in a tale of a solitary man named Severn and his strange encounter with a cat lady.
The Street of the First Shell
The title is not only the similarity to the previous story: both feature woman named Sylvia. This, however, is something of a war romance and is notably short on the influence of the King.
The Street of Our Lady of the Fields
The finale to the “Street Trilogy” tells of more Bohemian artists in Paris and is also light on the influence of the King.
Rue Barrée
More American art students in Paris and while the King in Yellow is an absent player in the drama yet again, the story does manage to tie back to the opening with a rather sardonic ending providing the connectivity.
The King in Yellow
The collection’s title refers not to one of the short stories, but a fictional play with a plot that bears a strong resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” “The King in Yellow” play also features a narrative revolving around an uninvited masked guest at a party attended by aristocratic elites whose arrival portends death and devastation. Needless to say, this stranger shows up decked out in yellow which becomes the hue symbolizing the pestilence of evil. The play is referenced throughout many of the stories in the book The King in Yellow.
