The Imagined Library Books that were never written

The Cthulhu Mythos  ·  Grimoire

The Book of Eibon

also known as Liber Ivonis; Livre d'Eibon

Eibon of Mhu Thulan

Can I actually read this? A little. Scattered lines survive in the text around it. Quoted

A Hyperborean grimoire that has come down, Smith says, through a series of manifold translations from a prehistoric original written in a lost language — the Necronomicon's older cousin, from the other end of the correspondence.

Lovecraft invented a mad Arab. Smith invented a whole climate.

The Book of Eibon does not come out of Damascus in the eighth century. It comes out of a continent that the ice has already eaten, written in a language no one living can check. That is a different kind of unavailability from the Necronomicon’s, and a colder one. You might, in principle, learn Arabic. You cannot enrol in Hyperborean.

Smith also did the thing Lovecraft only hinted at: he published a story as a chapter of the book. “The Coming of the White Worm” is not a tale about Eibon. It is Eibon, or as close as a Weird Tales page could get. The shared library is usually a list of titles that corroborate each other by being named. Here, briefly, one of the titles opens.

Lovecraft’s Latin and French aliases — Liber Ivonis, Livre d’Eibon — are the same habit that turned Mysteries of the Worm into De Vermis Mysteriis. He was building a card catalogue. Smith supplied a volume that already had a spine.

On the readability rating. Passages from Eibon are quoted in “Ubbo-Sathla”, and one chapter is given as a story. That is more of the book than we have of Prinn, and still a handful of leaves from a work whose original language is a plot point.

From the book

The Book of Eibon, that strangest and rarest of occult forgotten volumes … is said to have come down through a series of manifold translations from a prehistoric original written in the lost language of Hyperborea. "Ubbo-Sathla", 1933

In-world history

Written by Eibon in Mhu Thulan before the ice took Hyperborea. Survives as a chain of translations rather than as a single text; Smith is careful to say that the original language is gone. Gaspard du Nord of Averoigne is credited with the French. One of Smith's own stories is offered as a chapter, which is a more generous gift than Lovecraft ever gave Alhazred.

Why it matters

Smith's piece of the shared shelf. Eibon the wizard appears first; the book follows, already ancient. Lovecraft put Liber Ivonis on the Miskatonic list beside Alhazred, so that two invented provenances would corroborate each other.

Appearances

  • Ubbo-Sathla (1933) — Clark Ashton Smith First appearance of the book, already equipped with a translation history
  • The Coming of the White Worm (1941) — Clark Ashton Smith Presented as a chapter of the Book of Eibon
  • The Dreams in the Witch House (1933) — H. P. Lovecraft Lovecraft begins citing it in the same year

Connected volumes

Also from this world

Catalogue record

Category
Grimoire
World
The Cthulhu Mythos
Imagined by
Clark Ashton Smith , H. P. Lovecraft
Language
Hyperborean, in the original; later Punic, Greek, Latin, and a mediaeval French
First appearance
"Ubbo-Sathla", Weird Tales, July 1933
Readability
Quoted
Grimoires Dangerous Books Lost Manuscripts

Sources

  • Clark Ashton Smith, "Ubbo-Sathla", Weird Tales, July 1933; "The Coming of the White Worm", Stirring Science Stories, April 1941.
  • H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House", Weird Tales, July 1933, among his early citations of the book.

Added by house · last checked 2026-09-01