TheNecronomicon is a fictional book of magic created by thehorror writerH. P. Lovecraft. It is aGreek-sounding word commonly translated as "book of dead names". It is pronounced "neck-ro-nom-ih-kon". Like most of his ideas, theNecronomicon came to Lovecraft in his dreams. Lovecraft let his friends write stories about theNecronomicon. Eventually, fakeNecronomicons were written.
According to Lovecraft, theNecronomicon was written in the eighth century by a crazyArabian man named Abdul Alhazred. Alhazred (who was alsofictional) practicedevil magic. He assembled a collection of evil spells into amanuscript (a book with loose pages and no cover) which he calledAl Azif. Lovecraft said this as an Arabianphrase for a scary sound, like a scream. Later, the original manuscript was translated into Greek. It was given the titleNecronomicon.Olaus Wormius (a real person) then translated the Greek version into Latin.John Dee (also real) translated theNecronomicon into English. Lovecraft liked to mix in real people and places in his fiction. This made the stories seem more real. Some people were fooled into thinking what he wrote was true.
Since Lovecraft's death, several authors have written their own versions of theNecronomicon. They are the author'simagination of what theNecronomicon would be like, if it were real. A few claim to be the actualNecronomicon. The most famous case of a "real"Necronomicon is the "Simon"Necronomicon. Simon is a fake name. It was published in the 1970s. The "Simon"Necronomicon is based onSumerianmythology. It has nothing to do with H. P. Lovecraft's fiction. Some people dislike the "Simon"Necronomicon. They do not like that it pretends to be real. Sometimes, people believe it to be real. Simon has written several books about theNecronomicon's "discovery".
Here are some hoax Necronomicons (books that the authors claim are the real Necronomicon):
Here are some books that are the authors' imaginations of what the Necronomicon might be like:
Here are all the books by Simon about theNecronomicon: