PUBLICATION HISTORY
- Written by Abdul Alhazred in ~730 C.E.
- Yazzid III outlaws the Al Azif in 745 C.E.
- Theodorus Philetas translates Al Azif into Greek in 950 C.E., giving it the name “Necronomicon”, meaning “A Study of the Dead”
- Patriarch Michael orders all copies of the Necronomicon burnt. Arabic copy believed lost.
- Olaus Wormius produces Latin translation in 1228.
- Pope Gregory IX suppresses both Latin and Greek translations.
- Greek Edition Published in Germany (1440s), quickly outlawed.
- John Dee produces an English Translation in 1575, though it is never published.
- Th e Sussex Manuscript, a partial and very incomplete English translation of the Necronomicon, is published in very limited numbers in 1597.
- Latin reprint issued in Spain in 1661
A HISTORY OF THE NECRONOMICON
The danger of the written word lies in its longevity; long after the author is dust their thoughts continue to exist, a bridge between different times and different ways of thinking. This danger has long been recognized by those in power, who have enough trouble controlling the lives and thoughts of the living let alone those of the dead, who are beyond the reach of even the direst of threats. Often the only recourse available to those in power is to transfer their threats and censure onto the works themselves, banning and burning as quickly and as completely as possible in hopes of stemming the tide. Of course there is the danger that, by reacting too violently against a book, you enhance its mystique and demonstrate its potential to those watching.
The Necronomicon is, in many ways, the archetype of such banned and condemned volumes. Written in Damascus in 730 C.E., this volume soon gained a truly fearsome reputation. This is likely a result of its having been penned by a truly Faustian character, Abd al-Azrad (or, more romantically westernized as Abdul Alhazred The Mad Arab), a wizard, alchemist, occultist, mystic, and proto-scientist all rolled into one.
Alhazred lived a remarkable life. He studied in the ruins of Old Babylon, where he is said to have had a nameless thing in a well as a master. He traveled to Memphis, where he learned much forbidden lore from Priests of the Old Gods. He traveled to the Empty Quarter in modern day Saudi Arabia, where he claimed to have discovered Irem the Lost, City of Pillars. More remarkable still was the manner of his death; killed in broad daylight before a horrified crowd, ripped to shreds by an invisible monster.
Before his untimely dismemberment, Alhazred had penned his magnus opus, Al-Azif, a book of hellish magic and terrible prehistory. This volume was quickly outlawed by the Caliph of Damascus Yazid III, although apparently many copies were smuggled both West and East during the chaos of the Abbasid Revlution in the late 700s.
The work reemerged in Constantinople in 950 C.E., translated into Byzantine Greek by the scholar Theodorus Philetas. It is from this translation that the name we all know and love today came: The Necronomicon, roughly translated as “A Study of The Dead”. The work was quickly damned by the Patriarch Michael around 1050.
The book remained relatively obscure until Olaus Wormius produced his famous Latin translation in 1228 C.E., a volume quickly condemned and ordered destroyed by Pope Gregory IX. As is often the case, this order dramatically increased interest in the work, and numerous copies were produced and disseminated throughout Europe. A new Greek edition, back translated from Wormius’ Latin version, was produced in Nuremburg in 1440, while the famous John Dee produced an expurgated English translation in 1575. Perhaps most famously, the scholars of Toledo, Spain produced a Latin translation in 1661, apparently from an original Philetas Greek volume.
Today, rare copies of the work can be found all over the world. Copies of the 1661 Spanish volume can be found at the Biblioteque National in Paris, in the Miskatonic University Library in Arkham, Mass, at the Widener Library at Harvard, and at the library of the University of Buenos Aires. Two copies of the German
Greek editions are extant, one at the British Museum in London, and a second at the Wallace Library at Shaver University, California. All are heavily restricted.
(From Samizdat, v.1, n.1)
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