The Guardian of the Book

"The Guardian of the Book" is a short story by Henry Hasse that appeared in the March 1937 issue of Weird Tales. 
It is narrated by a Doctor Wycherly, who haunts used bookstores out of a "desire to peruse those so-called ‘forbidden books’ which speak of the unthinkable things of evil." He is offered the chance by a strange bookseller to read "the most Damnable Book ever loosed upon an unsuspecting Cosmos"--though he learns that reading this book will carry the ultimate cost.
The story is included in the collection Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos (Fedogan & Bremer, 1992).
== Mythos Tomes ==
The story includes an early catalog of Mythos tomes:The various versions of Alhazred’s Necronomicon, Flammarion’s Atmosphere, Von Junzt’s Nameless Cults, Kane’s Magic and Black Arts, Eibon’s Book, and the mysterious King in Yellow—which, if it does indeed exist, must transcend them all—none of these will you find lying around in bookstores.Flammarion's Atmosphere is a real book, chiefly remembered today for the first appearance of the Flammarion Engraving, an image of a traveler poking his head through the dome of the sky.Wikipedia, "Flammarion Engraving." The work by Kane appears to have been invented by Hasse.
== References ==
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Henry Hasse works