Closest thing to a "real" necronomicon?

[CMcCormack]

I was just thinking today--assuming (because i haven't read them) other mythos writers have cited passages from the Necronomicon, has there ever been a compilation of all those passages, combined with HPL's own passages in one volume?  It'd probably be hell on copyrights, and probably not horribly long, but might be a fun idea if it hasn't already been done!

[T. Kelly Lee]

I own first edition copies of all the published Necronomicon, and I've read each of them - including the wonderful de Camp edition of 348, which is my favorite.  The Simon Necronomicon is probably the most well known, but the least true to HPL's original intent.  However, the Tyson Necronomicon does a pretty good job of incorporating HPL's writings into the work.  So you might actually enjoy reading Tyson.  It's not very old and generally available. 

The Necronomicon, as described in Lovecraft, is a curious book and it makes it clear that when HPL created it he didn't know much about actual occult literature.  It's a hodgepodge - a "gospel," a mythical history, a grimoire, and a book of the dead.  Perhaps the closest thing to it in real life is probably the Bardo Thodol...if it had been written by John Dee! 

I think HPL's inspiration for the physicality of the book is probably the Voynich Manuscript, which would have been all the talk when HPL was a youngster.  It's a mysterious book written in a bizarre language which codebreakers have been unable to decipher.  It's either a magical or scientific text, it's full of crazy drawings, it's one of a kind, and it's hidden away in a famous library.   

[Eibon]

T. Kelly Lee has mentioned the "fake" Necronomica: The Hey's Necronomicon, Simon's Necronomicon, Tyson's Necronomicon, Decamp's Necronomicon, Giger's Necronomicon (strictly an art book). The Chaosium book The Necronomicon contains Lin Carter's Necronomicon and "The Sussex Manuscript" plus many stories related to the book. Much of the Chaosium book had appeared in issues of Crypt of Cthulhu first. None of them will drive you mad or allow you to open the gates to Yog-Sothoth, but the Tyson book has been praised.

In terms of collections of quotes, there was a collection called "The Necronomicon: A Study" by Mark Owings. It was a thick card-covered booklet which included all the quotes up to the time of publication (1967) along with Lovecraft's "A History of the Necronomicon" and "Existing Copies" by Owings, an long survey of all the mentions of the book in fiction and a summary of how many copies of which editions had been referenced and where to find them. I think it's an excellent work, but it is wildly out-of-date now (the growth of Cthulhu fiction since the Sixties has been huge) and very expensive, if you can find a copy.

[Vulpine]

Tyson's version is the one that most uses HPL's bits and pieces.  My only complaint was the fact there isn't a page 751.  Then again, I doubt it's the complete edition.

[LambethWarp]

I'm strongly opposed to any attempt to create a 'real' Necronomicon since no book could ever come close to being as maddeningly evil as the work described by HPL and other Mythos authors.

The closest thing I can think of in terms of genuinely feeling like a book of 'forbidden knowledge' is Cyclonopedia, which I started a thread about (http://hppodcraft.com/forums/index.php?topic=1299.0) - it's had plenty of views but no-one's yet replied, so I can safely assumed no-one's read it. It's well worth checking out if you don't mind tackling a 'challenging' read. Also it's all about the Middle East, which ties it in nicely with Abdul Alhazred and his original al-Azif.

[old book]

If al Ghul means The Ghoul, there's a film called Algol by some German fellow from before the war, although I haven't seen it. What if... the Necronomicon... were a... cook book!?!

I found a PDF of the original Peter Levenda Necronomicon as a notebook binder book sold by some occult shoppe in New-York City. It's pretty much the same BS as the later paperback, betrays a complete lack of knowledge of things Lovecraftian, but it does seem to draw upon at least names culled from real albeit arcane holy books, such as the Rb-Ginza (spelling?) of the Mandaeans. The Mandaic script is quite beautiful in itself.

The Voynich MS is a delicious idea, if HPL had heard of it. The drawings are certainly odd, but not woodcuts. Some people think the text is West Semitic from Cyprus written in a strange script and without many vowels, a practice certain Semitic orthographies follow. Personally I think it's a script using a "magic square" type calculator to form one character from two, but that's just a hunch. The flowers in it certainly look malicious, but the bathing mediaeval ladies are sort of meh. Perhaps Dee and Kelly were really trying to interest Rudolph in an expedition to the New World, because the herbal section, although all of the plants are purely products of someone's imagination, do resemble hebaria published around Shakespeare's time of plants from Virginia and the New World.

I'm fairly sure the Wormius edition is very Gothic looking with woodcuts of fantastic demons and creatures and small page-boxes of very large letters in Gothic script. Its predecessors could be in almost any form. It is probably worth noting the hoax to smuggle manuscripts INTO the Bibliothegue National in Paris by that French right-wing occultic group, whose faux livres show up in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and probably by extension make their way into Dan Brown's da Vinci Codex.