The long lost sorcerer's handbook, compiled in 800 A.D. by the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazzred lives on in the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft...
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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2026
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Multiple people wrote a "necronomicon" the most famous one(Which might be this one, it looks similar), is Simon's Necronomicon. It got the most traction as a tool for chaos magic despite being panned(like every other necronomicon) as being a fraud.
So you might have a different necronomicon from a different author.
is there any indication that it was ever a real book, even apocryphally? I thought it was wholly invented by Lovecraft, did he get it from somewhere else? and if not, what does it mean to be a "fraud" of an entirely fictional book?
It was invented by Lovecraft. The authors cashing in on it by writing versions of it are all from long after he had died.
Yeah I think that's right. Here's a wikipedia entry. Lovecraft invented it and developed a fictional history for it, but he never wrote it as a book. It was a fictional book that made appearances in the mythos of his actual books.
I've read a bunch of Lovecraft, and enjoyed most of it. IMO he was shit at character development, but fantastic at creating a mythos and foreboding atmosphere of evil lurking just under the surface.
Yeah fraud is the wrong word for this as there is no original book. At least Simon's was written by a guy who did practice ritual magic and was somewhat recognized in the NY occult scene. I don't know about the others so they may be more obvious cash grabs.