Necronomicon - Hoaxes and Alleged Translations

Hoaxes and Alleged Translations

Although Lovecraft insisted that the book was pure invention (and other writers invented passages from the book for their own works), there are accounts of some people actually believing the Necronomicon to be a real book. Lovecraft himself sometimes received letters from fans inquiring about the Necronomicon's authenticity. Pranksters occasionally listed the Necronomicon for sale in book store newsletters or inserted phony entries for the book in library card catalogues (where it may be checked out to one 'A. Alhazred', ostensibly the book's author and original owner). The Widener Library at Harvard, which is supposed to have a copy of the Necronomicon according to Lovecraft's stories, has a catalog entry telling the seeker to "inquire at desk". While the stories surrounding the Necronomicon claim that it is an extremely powerful and dangerous book (one that would not be safe just sitting on a shelf, where anyone could read it), it is equally possible that the listing has a much more mundane purpose — several (equally fictional) versions of the book do exist, and (since books such as the Necronomicon are frequently stolen from the shelves) the entry may simply be an attempt to prevent theft.

Similarly, the university library of Tromsø, Norway, lists a translated version of the Necronomicon, attributed to Petrus de Dacia and published in 1994, although the document is listed as "unavailable".

In 1973, Owlswick Press issued an edition of the Necronomicon written in an indecipherable, apparently fictional language known as "Duriac". This was a limited edition of 348. The book contains a brief introduction by L. Sprague de Camp.

The line between fact and fiction was further blurred in the late 1970s when a book purporting to be a translation of "the real" Necronomicon was published. This book, by the pseudonymous "Simon," had little connection to the fictional Lovecraft Mythos but instead was based on Sumerian mythology. It was later dubbed the "Simon Necronomicon". Going into trade paperback in 1980 it has never been out of print and has sold 800,000 copies by 2006 making it the most popular Necronomicon to date. Despite its contents, the book's marketing focused heavily on the Lovecraft connection and made sensational claims for the book's magical power. The blurb states it was "potentially, the most dangerous Black Book known to the Western World". Three additional volumes have since been published — The Necronomicon Spellbook, a book of pathworkings with the 50 names of Marduk; Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon, a history of the book itself and of the late 1970s New York occult scene; and The Gates Of The Necronomicon, instructions on pathworking with the Simon Necronomicon.

A hoax version of the Necronomicon, edited by George Hay, appeared in 1978 and included an introduction by the paranormal researcher and writer Colin Wilson. David Langford described how the book was prepared from a computer analysis of a discovered "cipher text" by Dr. John Dee. The resulting "translation" was in fact written by occultist Robert Turner, but it was far truer to the Lovecraftian version than the Simon text and even incorporated quotations from Lovecraft's stories in its passages. Wilson also wrote a story, "The Return of the Lloigor", in which the Voynich manuscript turns out to be a copy of the Necronomicon.

With the success of the Simon Necronomicon the controversy surrounding the actual existence of the Necronomicon was such that a detailed book, The Necronomicon Files, was published in 1998 attempting to prove once and for all the book was pure fiction. It covered the well-known Necronomicons in depth, especially the Simon one, along with a number of more obscure ones. It was reprinted and expanded in 2003.

In 2004, Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred, by occultist Donald Tyson, was published by Llewellyn Worldwide. The Tyson Necronomicon is generally thought to be closer to Lovecraft's vision than other published versions. Donald Tyson has clearly stated that the Necronomicon is fictional, but that has not prevented his book from being the center of some controversy. Tyson has since published Alhazred, a novelization of the life of the Necronomicon's author.