Lovecraft often talked about the Necronomicon in his letters – which rambled on about everything from Roman history to literature to his incurably sweet tooth – where he suggested that his inspiration for the book came from Gothic writing, which often featured ancient texts and forbidden literature. This, too, was worked into Lovecraft’s stories, including The Haunter Of The Dark and The Shadow Out Of Time. Robert Bloch, who would later write Psycho, came up with De Vermis Mysteriis, a book whose pages are potent enough to summon forth demonic beings from another dimension. In what became a lively exchange of ideas, this little coterie of storytellers constantly embroidered on Lovecraft’s myths in their own tales Smith came up with The Book of Eibon for his stories, which Lovecraft readily mentioned in his own work. The Necronomicon and its related mythology also inspired a number of writers in Lovecraft’s circle, and its name is mentioned in the works of such authors as August Derleth (who tinkered greatly with the Cthulhu Mythos in his stories) and Clark Ashton Smith. This attempt to build a coherent world, with its own history, deities and forbidden texts, gave Lovecraft’s work a wonderful sense of the unknown, providing sci-fi and horror literature with the kind of rich storytelling Tolkien would later bring to fantasy with his Middle Earth books.

The Necronomicon tied directly into this mythos, since it was said to contain a lengthy account of the extra-terrestrial Old Ones, and to merely look upon its pages would be enough to inspire madness. This Cthulhu Mythos, as it later became known, suggested that ancient, god-like beings once ruled the Earth, and could return to either destroy us or drive us all insane by anyone foolish enough to reawaken them.

Lovecraft was apparently unhappy with The Hound, but both it and The Nameless City, published in 1921, marked the beginning of the author’s endeavours to set his stories in one coherent universe. The tale told of two grave robbers doomed by their theft of a jade amulet, which they recognised as ” the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.” Although inspired by real texts, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon was a product of Lovecraft’s fertile imagination, and mention of it first appeared in the short story The Hound, first published in 1924.

Actually, the Necronomicon has a much shorter history than its true creator HP Lovecraft had his readers believe.

Evil dead 2013 necronomicon pages