otes regarding the

Necronomicon Project

by HPL

from AlAzif-Necronomicon Website

What is the "Necronomicon Project" ?

Somebody called it, in a mail I received, a 'necronomicon project'... it is not yet a project, but I would love to see it becoming one. The book as it exists right now is a draft of what I think it could (or should) be.

This Necronomicon started as an HTML enhanced version of an old web page available on the web back in 1994 (I can't find the original version anymore). It was part of the De Web Mysteriis pages, a website about H.P.Lovecraft's works I used to maintain when I was in college in 1994-1997.

De Web Mysteriis pages no longer exist, although I may revive them someday. In a way, I am already reviving part of that site with these pages.

 

Is this a real Necronomicon ?

No. Again, this is only an artistic view of what the mythic book could be. I do not believe in the existance of a real Necronomicon whatsoever. To me, the Necronomicon is a storytelling device created by H.P.Lovecraft to tie some of his stories together. You can find references about letters where Lovecraft explained how he created the book on the brilliant page by Donovan.K.Loucks. Click below button:

 

How did the idea start ?

The idea is very simple. It started from a sad observation : look around on the Net, all you can find about so called versions of the Necronomicon are raw ascii texts, sometimes with a couple of pictures. There are articles too, bibliographies, analyses... fine.. but I could find nowhere something that could look like the Necronomicon as I picture it. In the same time, I opened a guestbook on my 'Mysteriis Pages' and it happeared some people wrote very good pieces on it (unfortunately I lost a large part of the entries after a crash :( ). What started with a simple guestbook looked more like a kind of diary, filled with quotes, thoughts, warnings or poems about the Mythos. This gave me the idea of a collaborative work around the Al Azif and that's why I started to collect materials about the book and make my own version.

The Necronomicon I envision is an imaginary book, with drawings, pictures, poems, chronicles... just like the book described by Lovecraft. I have some drawing left to scan and put on the net for some extra pages. It's just a question of time.

I am sending this call for contribution for an obvious reason : There can't be a single vision of the Necronomicon. If we could put together the works of anyone who would like to share his own vision ( with drawings or poems or ritual or whatever ), we could come up with a unique place on the web. A kind of virtual Al Azif. Previous experiences proved it : collaborative work on the net is far more various and interesting that the vision of a single person.

All I am doing now is to offer web space and part of my time to build this vision.

So.. how can people contribute to it ?

As I said it above, by sending :

• drawings, pictures, paintings to illustrate the pages already existing.
• stories, chronicles, articles that could have been written by the Mad Arab himself or followers.
• comments, annotations, just like those you can find on real books.

They can be raw text or full HTML pages , it's fine, as long as I can download them here and insert them in the site.