The
Necronomicon is a
fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in the stories by
horror writer
H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's
1924 short story "
The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad
Arab"
Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "
The Nameless City". Among other things, the work contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them.