Literary Agents Fiction Books
The Necronomicon, or: The Book of Dead Names
How a Horrific Fiction became a Historic Fact, the true story of a book that never was.
The Necromomicon, or âThe Book of Dead Namesâ, was originally called âAl Azifâ, an Arabic word meaning ânocturnal sound, howling of demonsâ. The book was written by the half-crazed Arab Abdul Alhazred, who visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis, and who worshipped demons like Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. He died suddenly and in a mysterious way in 738. In 950, âThe Book of Dead Namesâ was translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas. This version impelled some experimenters to terrible invocations, before being suppressed and burnt in 1050 by the patriarch Michael, who died in 1059. The Necronomicon was translated into Latin by Olaus Wormius and into English by the magician John Dee (1527-1609).
