The initial story, "The Repairer of Reputations" takes us into 1920's Manhattan, introducing us to the play and the madness it causes. It begins with a delightful creepiness, and then descends into a madness that makes you question much of what you have already read. The main character is Hildred Castaigne, who believes himself to be the heir to the American imperial crown. There are other oddities as well, and knowing what is supposed to be the "real" future may just be the ravings of a madman. The second story, "The Mask" goes backward in time a bit, to the Paris of an indeterminate year. In it an artist has created a solution that will turn any living object into marble. Again, the narrator is driven mad by the play, "postshadowing" events in the first story. Third, "In the Court of the Dragon" is the shortest and perhaps eeriest of the four. It also takes place in Paris. Its temporal relationship to the first two is undetermined, though is obviously before "The Repairer of Reputations" as that story mentions the play being banned in Paris. Last is "The Yellow Sign" which is last in the timeline, as the narrator mentions having known Castaigne...
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