When you open the 1993 edition, you are not invoking ancient gods. You are invoking the power of 1990s suburban teenage rebellion, mass-market horror, and the very human desire to believe that forbidden knowledge is just a few dollars and a book report away. And for millions of readers, that was more than enough.
But what exactly was unleashed in 1993? It was not the first edition (that came in 1977), but rather the mass-market paperback reprint by . This wasn’t a dusty relic from the library of Abdul Alhazred; it was a slick, black-covered, $6.99 paperback sold in the “New Age” section of every Waldenbooks and B. Dalton in America. The 1993 Text: A Grimoire for the Masses Before 1993, obtaining a copy of the Simon Necronomicon meant hunting down a rare, expensive edition from Schlangekraft or Delirium Books. The Avon 1993 printing changed everything. It democratized the forbidden. Necronomicon -1993-
The book presents itself as a authentic Sumerian/Babylonian grimoire, allegedly translated by a mysterious figure known only as “Simon.” It discards Lovecraft’s fictional Cthulhu mythos names (like Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth) and instead replaces them with historical Mesopotamian deities: (a deliberate phonetic twist on Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu”). When you open the 1993 edition, you are