The book is named after an anecdotal play with a similar title which repeats as a theme through a portion of the tales. The main portion of the book includes exceedingly regarded strange stories, and the book is depicted by S.T. Joshi as a great in the field of the otherworldly. There are 10 stories, the initial four of which, "The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon" and "The Yellow Sign", notice The King in Yellow, a taboo play which instigates hopelessness or frenzy in the individuals who read it.