Editing Necronomicon (section)

==Origin and etymology==
How Lovecraft conceived the name ''{{transliteration|grc|Necronomicon}}'' is not clear—Lovecraft said that the title came to him in a dream.<ref name="HPLA-letters">{{cite web |url=http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/necron/letters.aspx |title=Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Letters |date=April 13, 2004 |website=www.hplovecraft.com |publisher=Donovan K. Loucks}}</ref> Although some have suggested that Lovecraft was influenced primarily by [[Robert W. Chambers]]' collection of short stories ''[[The King in Yellow]]'', which centers on a mysterious and disturbing play in book form, Lovecraft is not believed to have read that work until 1927.<ref>Joshi & Schultz, "Chambers, Robert William", ''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia'', p. 38</ref>

Donald R. Burleson has argued that the idea for the book was derived from [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]], though Lovecraft himself noted that "mouldy hidden manuscripts" were one of the stock features of [[Gothic literature]].<ref>Joshi, "Afterword".</ref>

Lovecraft wrote<ref>H. P. Lovecraft: ''Selected Letters V'', 418</ref> that the title, as translated from the [[Greek language]], meant "an image of the law of the dead", compounded respectively from {{lang|grc|νεκρός}} ''{{transliteration|grc|nekros}}'' "dead", {{lang|grc|νόμος}} ''{{transliteration|grc|nomos}}'' "law", and {{lang|grc|εἰκών}} ''{{transliteration|grc|eikon}}'' "image".<ref>{{LSJ|nekro/s|νεκρός}}, {{LSJ|no/mos2|νόμος}}, {{LSJ|ei)kw/n|εἰκών|ref}}.</ref> [[Robert M. Price]] notes that the title has been variously translated by others as "Book of the names of the dead", "Book of the laws of the dead", "Book of dead names" and "Knower of the laws of the dead".{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}} S. T. Joshi states that Lovecraft's own etymology is "almost entirely unsound. The last portion of it is particularly erroneous, since ''{{transliteration|grc|-ikon}}'' is nothing more than a neuter adjectival suffix and has nothing to do with ''{{transliteration|grc|eikõn}}'' (image)." Joshi translates the title as "Book considering (or classifying) the dead".<ref>Joshi, S.T. ''The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos'' (Mythos Books, 2008) pp. 34-35.</ref>

Lovecraft was often asked about the veracity of the ''{{transliteration|grc|Necronomicon}}'', and always answered that it was completely his invention. In a letter to [[Willis Conover]], Lovecraft elaborated upon his typical answer:

<blockquote>Now about the "terrible and forbidden books"—I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or ''{{transliteration|grc|Necronomicon}}'', for I invented these names myself. [[Robert Bloch]] devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his ''[[De Vermis Mysteriis]]'', while the ''[[Book of Eibon]]'' is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith's. [[Robert E. Howard]] is responsible for Friedrich von Junzt and his ''[[Unaussprechlichen Kulten]]''.... As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes—in all truth they don't amount to much. That is why it's more fun to invent mythical works like the ''{{transliteration|grc|Necronomicon}}'' and ''Book of Eibon''.<ref name="HPLA-letters" /></blockquote>

Reinforcing the book's fictionalization, the name of the book's supposed author, Abdul Alhazred, is not even a grammatically correct [[Arabic name]]. What is transliterated as "Abdul" in English is actually a noun in the nominative form ''ʿabdu'' ({{lang|ar|عَبْدُ}}, "servant") and the definite article ''al-'' ({{lang|ar|الـ}}) and amounts to "servant of the" with the article actually being part of the second noun in the construct, which in this case is supposed to be "Alhazred" (traditional Arabic names do not follow the modern first name-surname format). But "Alhazred", even if considered as a corruption of ''al-ḥaḍrāt'' ({{lang|ar|حَضْرَات}}, "the presences") though it seems unlikely, itself is a definite noun (i.e., a noun prefixed by the definite article) and thus "Abdul Alhazred" could not possibly be a real Arabic name.<ref>Petersen, Sandy & Lynn Willis. ''Call of Cthulhu'', p. 189.</ref> Lovecraft first used the name "Abdul Alhazred" as a pseudonym he gave himself as a five-year-old,<ref>Graham Harman, ''Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy'', pp. 107–108, John Hunt Publishing, 2012 {{ISBN|1780999070}}</ref> and very likely mistook "Abdul" to be a first name while inventing "Alhazred" as an Arabic-sounding surname.