the cursed book. 

The night opens on the hem of the abyss.

The doors of hell are closed:

To your risk it tries to them.

To your callback something for answer to you will be aroused.

This gift i leave the humanty:

Here is the keys.

It tries the lock; be satisfied.

But listen to what Abdul Alhazred says:

For first I have tried to them: and I am mad.

(from the preface to the Necronomicon)

The original title of the work is Al Azif: «Azif» is the allocution used by Arabs in order to indicate the strange nocturnal sounds (due to the bugs) that were supposed to be the howl of the demons.

The author is Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sanaa, capital of Yemen, who is said has lived in the period of the Ommaiadi Caliphs, in the eighth century after Christ. He made many mysterious pilgrimages between the ruins of Babylon and the secret catacomb of Memphis, and passed ten years completely alone in the great desert of the souther Arabia the Raba El Khaliyeh, or «Empty space» of the ancient Arabs, and Dahna, or «Cremisi Desert» of the modern ones, thought dwelling of deadly malignany spirits and monsters. About this desert those pepole whom they expect of having crossed it, narrate many strange and incredible wonders.

In his last years, Alhazred lived in Damasco, where it was written Al Azif, and about his passing away (in the 738 a.D.) many terrible and conflicting particular are told. Ibn Khallikan (a biographer of the twelfth century), reports that he was daylight seized from an invisible monster and eaten in chilling way forehead a great number of witnesses frosted by terror.
Also his madness is object of many stories. He asserted to have visited the fabulous Irem, the City of the Thousand Colonies, and to have found between the ruins of an innominable desert village the extraordinary reports and the secrets of one more ancient race than the umanity. He didn't follow the muslim religion but he adorated the disowned Entities that Yog e Cthulhu were called.

Around the year 950, Al Azif, which had been diffused widely, even if in secret, between the philosophers of the age, it was clandestinely translated in Greek by the erudite byzantine Teodoro Fileta, with the title of Necronomicon, that is, literally: «Book of  the laws tha govern the dead men».

For a century it favored unspeakable experiences, until it was suppressed and burnt around the year 1050 from the bishop Michele, patriarch of Costantinopoli. After that its name was only furtively whispered but, in late Middle Ages (1228), the Danish Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation of it, based on the Greek version of Fileta, that was twice printed: one in the end of the fifteenth century, in gothic characters (evidently in Germany); then in seventeenth (probably in Spain).

Both the editions are lacking of whichever sign of identificationm and can be localized in time and space only considerating the type of press.

The work, in Latin and in Greek, was put in the Index Expurgatorius since 1232 by Pope Gregorio IX, whom was shown the edition of Wormius to. In that age the Arabic original had already gone lost, like the preface to the first Latin version shows (there is however a vague indication in accordance with a secret copy which would  be appeared in San Francisco in this century, and would have gone destroyed in the famous fire of 1906).

There was no more news about the Greek Version - that is was printed in Italy between the 1560 and the 1570 - until the report of the stake which a citizen of Salem with his library was condamned to in 1692. A translation in English made by the doctor John Dee around the 1580, didn't ever print, and exists only in some fragments proceeded from the original manuscript.

Of the currently existing Latin versions, one (of the fifteenth century) is guarded in the British Museum, while an other (of the seventeenth century) is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Other editions of the seventeenth century are in the Widener Library in Harvard, in the library of the Miskatonic University in Arkham and in the University of Buenos Aires. However numerous other copies sure exist belonging to a private men and in purpose the voice that circulates with insistence is that a copy of the text in gothic chatacters of the fifteenth century makes part of the private collection of a famous multi-millionaire american man.

It seems that also the family Pickman of Boston has got a copy of the Greek text printed in Italy in the sixteenth century: if it is true, this however is sure vanished with the painter R. U. Pickman, whose traces from 1926 have gotten lost.

The book is placed to the index from all the religions of the world. Its reading determines terrible consequences. One says that it is exactly from the vague news on this work (whose existence a very little part of people knows), that the writer R. W. Chambers has got the cue for his famous novel The King in Yellow, whose conductor thread is an iniziatic book whose reading causes madness.

- Editions of the Necronomicon, with dates of publication and several translation.

Versions:

• Arabic original one: three copies written by hand going back to 730-738.
• Teodoro Fileta (Greek translation): one written by hand copy, going back to 950, in Costantinopoli. Obtained version from the Arabic text.
• Olaus Wormius (Latin translation): one copy written by hand, of the approximately  1228, in Jutland. Obtained version from the Greek text of Fileta.
• John Dee (English translation) one copy written by hand, of the1580, in London. The version is probably obtained from the text of Fileta.

• German edition: text in Latin, printed in gothic characters, reproducing the version of Olaus Wormius. It has neither date nor publication place: it has been printed probably in Norimberga in the end of century XV.
• Italian edition: the text is in Greek and reproduces the version of Teodoro Fileta. Undated neither place of publication:  it has been probably printed in Rome, around the 1567.
• Spanish edition: the text in Latin reproduces the version of Olaus Wormius. Undated neither place of publication. Printed probably in Madrid, around the 1623.

- List of the exemplary of the Necronomicon of which is given for sure the existence. Beyond there exist others that are held secretely.

• The British Museum keeps in its classified archives one copy of the text in gothic characters, complete.
• A multi-millionaire american man seems that possesses one copy of the text in gothic characters.
• The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris is in possession of a copy of the Spanish edition.
• The Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachussets, possesses one copy of the Spanish edition.
• The Library of the University of Buenos Aires possesses one copy of the Spanish edition.
• The Widener Library in Harvard has another Spanish edition.
• The Library of the University of Lima in Perù possesses one copy of the Italian edition.
• The Kester Library in Salem, Massachussets, keeps one copy of the Necronomicon in gothic characters.
• The Central Libray of California State University, Los Angeles, possesses one copy of the Spanish edition.
• In a private collection in Cairo there's a copy of the Italian edition.
• The Vatican Library possesses one copy of the text in gothic characters ond one of the Italian edition.
• In a disowned Locality of China, exists one copy written by hand of the Arabic text.
• In the City without Name, in Arabia, there are some fragments of the original manuscript.

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