History of the Necronomicon
Lovecraft's Mock-Scholarly Appendix
A brief pseudo-historical essay Lovecraft wrote in 1927 tracing the Necronomicon from Alhazred through Latin and English translations - the blueprint for all later mythos scholarship.
Overview
History of the Necronomicon is not fiction but fiction's scaffolding: a few pages in which Lovecraft pretends the Necronomicon exists, listing translators, print runs, and library locations with scholarly calm. Every later grimoire hoax and RPG prop traces back to this joke taken seriously.
Readers should consult the Necronomicon archive dossier for in-story lore; this record documents the essay itself.
Historical Record
Circulated among friends in the 1920s; widely reprinted in anthologies after Lovecraft's death. Joshi and other scholars treat it as the authoritative fake bibliography.
Cross-reference Field Dispatch ME-JRN-NECRO for real-world books inspired by the hoax.
Archive Notes
Essential reading for collectors and game designers. Not a substitute for reading The Call of Cthulhu or The Dunwich Horror where the tome appears in narrative.
Citation: Miskatonic Expedition Archive. Record TOM-006. Access subject to institutional review.
Related Records
Cross-References
TOM-001
fragmentaryNecronomicon
Al Azif, Book of Dead Names
The most infamous grimoire of the mythos, an Arabic manuscript of rituals, histories, and formulae that erode the sanity of readers and have never been wholly suppressed, only scattered.
SCH-001
unknownAbdul Alhazred
The Mad Arab
A poet and scholar of Sanaá who wandered ruined cities and compiled the Al Azif before vanishing in broad daylight, devoured, witnesses said, by something the eye could not see.