Originally published in August 1927 while its author was bound over in jail awaiting trial, The Dark Chamber has achieved a legendary status among fans of weird fiction. Leonard Cline's third novel, it is remembered today thanks to H. P. Lovecraft, who called it "extremely high in artistic stature." The novel has been called a precursor to Paddy Chayefsky's book Altered States, for it tells the tale of a man, Richard Pride, who, in attempting to recall the lost moments of his life, resorts to stimulation by means of music, smells, and drugs, until he taps into hereditary memory, into the dark chamber of his mind.