Product Description
Originally published in 1922.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Some tedium, some excellence
I have to admit at the start that I am not a huge Machen fan; I only read him beacause he has influenced the greats, such as Lovecraft. That being said, this is a good book because it contains 2 of his big "classics": "The White People" and "The Great God Pan". These should be familiar to any reader of weird tales. I find The White People to be a little tedious but still should be read by all. The other 2 novellas here are The Inmost Light and A Fragment of Life. I thoroughly enjoyed The Inmost Light because I am a great fan of "The Occult Detective" and this story surely fits that genra. It has a good plot that drives toward a satisfying conclusion. Alas, I cannot say the same for the opening piece "A Fragment of Life". This is a meandering monstrosity that goes nowhere very slowly. I will admit that I never finished it. After slogging through the main couple a)worrying over furnishing a roomb)worrying over buying a stoveand c)worrying over their mad aunt moving in with them I had had quite enough! Perhaps the end is interesting but I haven't enough time in this lifetime to wade through all the preliminary stuff. The trouble with Machen is that he tends to babble on and this story is an example of him at his worst. But 3/4 of the stories are good. I remain more of aBlackwood fan.

A CHILLING AND SUGGESTIVE BUNCH OF TALES
I had been wanting to check out Arthur Machen's 1906 collection of short stories, entitled "The House of Souls," for quite some time; even since I had read two highly laudatory pieces written about this work and its author. The first was H.P. Lovecraft's comments in his widely referred to essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," in which he claims "Of living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen." And, in Jones & Newman's excellent overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books," T.E.D. Klein, in his essay on "The House of Souls," refers to Machen as "fantasy's pre-eminent stylist." Well, after years of looking, I finally managed to lay hands on a somewhat beaten-up copy of the 1928 Borzoi edition of this collection, and can now see what all the fuss has been about. My edition only contains four of the book's original stories; "The Novel of the Black Seal," "The Novel of the White Powder" and "The Red Hand" have been omitted. (Apparently, the book has had a complicated publishing history.) What remains, however, has served as a very fine introduction to Machen ("rhymes with 'blacken,'" Klein reveals) in my own case.

The Borzoi edition kicks off with the novella-length piece "A Fragment of Life," which tells of a newlywed couple, the Darnells, living in a London suburb. Machen piles on an enormous amount of fine detail to illustrate the Darnells' life; thus, we learn of their plans to redecorate a bedroom, how much they pay for groceries, the social life of their maid, the problems that Mrs. Darnell's aunt is having, and on and on. It only gradually dawns on the reader, and on Mr. Darnell, that this is, literally, just a fragment of life, indeed; that all this mundane nonsense is just a masklike covering that hides a greater reality. Like many of the characters of Algernon Blackwood and, much later, P.K. Dick, Mr. Darnell seeks to pierce the illusion of our so-called reality, and this initially prosaic story winds up being quite an eerie and mystical ride as a result. The next tale in this collection, "The White People," was Lovecraft's second-favorite horror story of all time, after Blackwood's "The Willows." In this one, a man is given the diary of a young girl by another man who wishes to demonstrate what the real nature of evil is all about. The bulk of the story consists of the girl's seemingly naive and rambling notes in her journal, and we learn that she is a sorceress of sorts, being trained by her nurse is some kind of dark arts. Nothing is really spelled out for the reader in this piece; rather, through the use of narrated fairy tales, strange incidents and almost hallucinatory journeys, a very unsettling aura is engendered. It is all very allusive and suggestive, demanding of the reader a great exercise of the imagination. I suppose that Lovecraft had a greater imagination than mine (no great surprise there, though!), because I was left wanting a bit more from this tale. Still, some pretty eerie stuff. The oft-anthologized "The Great God Pan" is up next, to my mind the strongest story of the bunch. In this one, a scientist performs a brain operation on a young woman to (again) pierce the veil that obscures an ultimate reality. Seventeen years later, a mysterious, debauched woman causes a rash of suicides in London high society, as a small group of men tries to figure out just what is going on. Reading like a late 19th century detective story crossed with the supernatural, this is one bravura piece of work from Mr. Machen, and concludes in a suitably gruesome and gooey manner. The story is a bit too dependent on coincidence in its telling, but remains most impressive. Finally, in my Borzoi edition, is "The Inmost Light," still another tale of a scientist trying to peer behind the curtain to behold a truer reality. Here, another woman is the subject of an experiment that produces horrifying results. The described image of Mrs. Black's hideous face in an upstairs window, as seen by our narrator from some distance away, is one that lingers in the memory. As in "The White People" and "The Great God Pan," most of the horrors are suggested rather than spelled out in this tale, which may be a disappointment to a modern reader steeped in the current tradition of gore and grue, but there is no denying the chilling mood that these stories can evoke.

I should perhaps mention here that "The House of Souls" was NOT that easy a read for me. There are dozens of references to English life of a century or more ago that may mean little to the 21st century reader (just what IS an "A.B.C. girl," anyway?), not to mention much British slang, Latin expressions and so on. A detailed street map of London proved invaluable to me as I read this book. Still, a little effort in these matters always results in a deeper appreciation, and there surely is much to appreciate in "The House of Souls." It is certainly well worth any reader's time. Thanks, T.E.D., and thanks, H.P.!

Contains an especial gem
All of Machen's work is worth reading, but of the four novellas in this collection "A Fragment of Life" is itself entirely worth the price of admission.In this tale, Machen excels himself in creating a moving, human tale, full of wonder and joy (and so unlike his more common "Buckets o' Grue" material).A fine tale, plus three more that are effectively a bonus read.

Essential Reading
Machen (1863-1947) stands as one of the great figures in "weird", or supernatural, literature. This plain but functional reprint of the 1922 U.S. edition of "The House of Souls" contains two of his finest works in the genre - "The White People" and "The Great God Pan".

The book opens with an introduction, penned by Machen, which provides insight into the writing of the pieces within and into Machen himself.

The first of the four novellas, "A Fragment of Life", concerns the awakening of an "ordinary" man to his mystic and real self. This piece, rather subtle and slow moving, may require rereading for full appreciation.

"The White People" takes us into the pages of a journal written by a young girl who has been privy since early childhood, via her nursemaid, to ancient and arcane secrets. The journal is the gist of this story and is quite a gripping mix of fantasy and myth (yes, there is a difference). The narrative framework around the journal introduces us, via the discussion of two protagonists, to Machen's fascinating theories about good and evil.

"The Great God Pan" concerns the appearance of the title entity into the everyday world of men through the agency of a more or less typical "mad doctor"; or, as Machen describes the character, a practitioner of "transcendental medicine".

The fourth and final story, "The Inmost Light", is not among my favorites in the Machen cannon. Nonetheless, the narrative about another doctor dabbling in occult realms is an effective mystery and an enjoyable read.

All in all, an excellent collection from an excellent writer and requisite reading for any serious student of supernatural fiction. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
An experiment into the sources of the human brain through the mind of a young woman has gone horribly wrong. She has seen the great God Pan and will die giving birth to a daughter, Helen Vaughan. Helen Vaughan becomes the source of much fevered speculation when, twenty years later, she is feted as a society hostess of great charm. Many men are infatuated with her beauty, but great beauty has a price, sometimes you have to pay with the only thing you have left. "The Great God Pan" was a sensation when first published in 1894. Its author, Arthur Machen, was a struggling unknown author living in London. He had translated Casanova's memoirs and was living on a small inheritance. He immediately became one of the most talked about writers of the last years of the nineteenth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

So-so Halloween Read
This is supposed to be a classic horror novel, which I thought would be an interesting read with Halloween around the corner. It is a really fast read, but I was a little disappointed that nothing much actually happened in the story.

I guess this is one of those stories where nothing is really described, and your mind is left to fill in the ghastly details that were such a terror to the men that associated with Helen. It was an OK read, but I guess some of the subtleties were lost on me.

Disappointing
I read this text because it was recommended by a professor of classical mythology in connection with a lecture on the dark side of Pan.The story's references to Greek mythology, however, are brief and nondescriptive.The mood set by the author has elements of classic 19th century London noir, but the story telling disappoints.

The edition is also poorly edited - misspellings and skipped words.I wondered at times if the editor had perhaps deleted paragraphs!And that this was the source of my questionning the professor's recommendation.

Great God Pan
I've been meaning to read something by Machen for a while. Partially because I heard this was good and partially because he's Welsh. This is a decent little story but it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. If your into twisted Lovecraft type stuff you will like this.

Pure Genius
A must-have for any true fan of horror literature. A subtle, thought provoking work that will linger in your mind, and haunt your dreams.

Let down
this booked was so hyped up to be the ultimate for horror/occult fans. I must have missed the point. Not worth the price of admission. ... Read more

Product Description
Born in Wales in 1863, Machen was a London journalist for much of his life.Among his fiction, he may be best known for the allusive, haunting title story of this book, &"The White People", which H.P. Lovecraft thought to be the second greatest horror story ever written (after Blackwood's "The Wilows"). This wide ranging collection also includes the crystalline novelette "A Fragment of Life", & "The Angel of Mons" (a story so widely reported that it was imagined true by millions in the grim initial days of the Great War), and "The Great Return" telling of the stately visions which graced the Welsh village of Llantristant for a time. Four more tales and the poetical "Ornaments in Jade" are all finely told. This is the second Machen volume edited by S. T. Joshi and published by Chaosium. The first volume was The Three Impostors. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Ornaments of Beaty & Horror
H. P. Lovecraft considered "The White People" the second greatest weird tale ever written, following Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows."With this second of three marvelous editions of "the Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen," S. T. Joshi has proved himself to be Machen's finest editor.The book's fascinating Introduction is full of information and relates Machen's attempt to escape the stylistic influence of Robert Louis Stevenson:

"I was to start afresh, then, from the beginning to turn over a new leaf, both as regards matter and manner.No more white powders, no more of the calix principis inferorum, no more hanky-panky with the Great God Pan, or the Little People or any people of that dubious sort; and--this was the hard part--no more of the measured, rounded Stevenonian cadence, which I had learned to use with some faculty and more facility."

What makes me volume especially enticing for me is that it includes the exquisite prose poems that were published as "Ornaments in Jade" -- they are quite beautiful and strange.Arthur Machen is an artist of the finest form, combining intelligence and art, an interesting outlook on life and the supernatural.The three books in this wonderful series, impeccably edited by the magnificent S. T. Joshi, is a treasure trove indeed!

Arthur Machen master of the weird tale
I would like to recommend to the reader of fantasy, horror or weird fiction that they read and re-read these stories by Arthur Machen. The late Victorian era Welsh author was an awkward loner, by all accounts, who traveled to London for work, but never left his Wales homeland emotionally. His writing is infused with a love of the lush, green Welsh landscape, much as Lovecraft wrote of his beloved New England. The stories themselves are never blunt or overt, but pull the reader in with clever, subtle devices and development, constructing an eerie, inexplicable mood that stays with the reader long after finishing a story. I highly recommend this collection and Machen's work in general.

Another excellent collection of weird stories from this Welsh master
This is the second book in the series of three from Chaosium where S. T. Joshi has edited a collection of what he finds to be Arthur Machen's best and most memorable weird tales. I was very much looking forward to reading this, since I for years had heard of Lovecraft's judging Machen's tale "The White People" to be the second best weird tale in existence (after Blackwood's "The Willows"). I was certainly not disappointed!

The introduction by Joshi is as always interesting and informative. The book starts out with another tale from his cycle about the "Little People"; "The Red Hand". A fine detective tale with a major twist, a splendid tale which is also quite creepy. Then comes the pleasant surprise of a cycle of prose-poems known as "Ornaments in Jade". These short "stories" were very much to my taste, and they all have a kind of dreamy and vaguely creepy character.

The title tale "The White People" appears, which is a bit of a strange tale. It's told like little scraps from a young girl's diary, and chronicles her initiatory upbringing by a peculiar nanny, and small experiences from her young life. Another very creepy tale. The prose is, as in everything I've read by Machen, exquisite, and he really had me believing it was a genuine diary. The pages fly by, and I heartily concur with Lovecraft's judgment that it is a marvellous tale, even though I'd say a lot of Lovecraft's own writing is just as fine.

The rest of the book consists of the fine but mundane tale about the famous "Bowmen", that millions believed was a genuine field report from WW1 about angels on the battlefield. Apart from this the rest of the tales are fine material, but all of the marred in some way by Machen's rather conventional Catholic Christianity, which to me personally really ruins the endings of quite a few of his tales.

That being said, this volume does contain some of the best weird tales I've ever read, and I heartily recommend it.

A Refreshing Change
I often find myself drawn to the explicit- gore and carnage, ala Bentley Little and Richard Laymon, so the sublety of Machen's writing was quite a departure for me. The style is quite beautiful- this is a talented writer whose prose will sweep you away with its pure visual beauty.

You will not grasp the entire sequence of events first in these tales, you may have to read them a second time, but that is a pleasure given the author's pleasing style. Perhaps it is time to take a break from the overt that is so prevalent in books and films today, and return to a kinder, gentler time where what is not said can be even more horrifying than what is thrown in your face. This is Machen.

Too Dry, Too Mundane
Other reviews are longer and more in-depth.This is meant as a quickie.

Too many of these stories are short (three pages) and rather limp.I prefer stories that are either longer (more development) or harder-hitting (with action/horror/experimental text/uniqueness/something!).

And unlike the first volume in this series, the language is dry.When combined with the more mundane subject matter, this book does not merit the four stars I gave "The Three Impostors".

Worth three stars out of five. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Best Machen Anthology Available
This book is no longer in print--at least not in an inexpensive paperback edition--but it's worth searching for a used copy. All of Machen's best supernatural short stories and novellas are brought together in thisvolume.

For those who have never read Machen, you are in for a treat.Machen was an accomplished writer of supernatural tales with an unusuallypowerful and original imagination. The premise on which he based many ofhis most chilling tales--that of the survival of an aboriginal Europeanpopulation worshipping chthonic fertility deities--was later made famous asa historical thesis by Margaret Murray in "The God of theWitches". I don't know how much value this idea has as a scholarlypremise, but Machen thought of it decades before Murray, and used it as theunderstated background in some his best stories, such as "The WhitePeople". However, Machen was much more than a purveyor of scarystories; he was a well rounded, sociable man with a strong mystical streak.These personal qualities manifest themselves in his writing through a quiethumor and muted, but powerful, sense of the numinous. Unlike many of thewriters of supernatural and fantasy fiction who followed and were indebtedto him, (Dunsany, Cabell, Lovecraft are but a few) Machen seems to havethought that the horrors he wrote about were only the shadow side of somemore powerful and greater goodness. This strong but undogmatic faith givesMachen's work a unique feeling of wonder and mystery. Even GeorgeMacDonald's Christian fantasies lack the freshness and sense of possibilityfound in Machen's best work. This book, along with most of Machen's otherwritings, is a satisfying and complex read. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1922.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Some tedium, some excellence
I have to admit at the start that I am not a huge Machen fan; I only read him beacause he has influenced the greats, such as Lovecraft. That being said, this is a good book because it contains 2 of his big "classics": "The White People" and "The Great God Pan". These should be familiar to any reader of weird tales. I find The White People to be a little tedious but still should be read by all. The other 2 novellas here are The Inmost Light and A Fragment of Life. I thoroughly enjoyed The Inmost Light because I am a great fan of "The Occult Detective" and this story surely fits that genra. It has a good plot that drives toward a satisfying conclusion. Alas, I cannot say the same for the opening piece "A Fragment of Life". This is a meandering monstrosity that goes nowhere very slowly. I will admit that I never finished it. After slogging through the main couple a)worrying over furnishing a roomb)worrying over buying a stoveand c)worrying over their mad aunt moving in with them I had had quite enough! Perhaps the end is interesting but I haven't enough time in this lifetime to wade through all the preliminary stuff. The trouble with Machen is that he tends to babble on and this story is an example of him at his worst. But 3/4 of the stories are good. I remain more of aBlackwood fan.

A CHILLING AND SUGGESTIVE BUNCH OF TALES
I had been wanting to check out Arthur Machen's 1906 collection of short stories, entitled "The House of Souls," for quite some time; even since I had read two highly laudatory pieces written about this work and its author. The first was H.P. Lovecraft's comments in his widely referred to essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," in which he claims "Of living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen." And, in Jones & Newman's excellent overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books," T.E.D. Klein, in his essay on "The House of Souls," refers to Machen as "fantasy's pre-eminent stylist." Well, after years of looking, I finally managed to lay hands on a somewhat beaten-up copy of the 1928 Borzoi edition of this collection, and can now see what all the fuss has been about. My edition only contains four of the book's original stories; "The Novel of the Black Seal," "The Novel of the White Powder" and "The Red Hand" have been omitted. (Apparently, the book has had a complicated publishing history.) What remains, however, has served as a very fine introduction to Machen ("rhymes with 'blacken,'" Klein reveals) in my own case.

The Borzoi edition kicks off with the novella-length piece "A Fragment of Life," which tells of a newlywed couple, the Darnells, living in a London suburb. Machen piles on an enormous amount of fine detail to illustrate the Darnells' life; thus, we learn of their plans to redecorate a bedroom, how much they pay for groceries, the social life of their maid, the problems that Mrs. Darnell's aunt is having, and on and on. It only gradually dawns on the reader, and on Mr. Darnell, that this is, literally, just a fragment of life, indeed; that all this mundane nonsense is just a masklike covering that hides a greater reality. Like many of the characters of Algernon Blackwood and, much later, P.K. Dick, Mr. Darnell seeks to pierce the illusion of our so-called reality, and this initially prosaic story winds up being quite an eerie and mystical ride as a result. The next tale in this collection, "The White People," was Lovecraft's second-favorite horror story of all time, after Blackwood's "The Willows." In this one, a man is given the diary of a young girl by another man who wishes to demonstrate what the real nature of evil is all about. The bulk of the story consists of the girl's seemingly naive and rambling notes in her journal, and we learn that she is a sorceress of sorts, being trained by her nurse is some kind of dark arts. Nothing is really spelled out for the reader in this piece; rather, through the use of narrated fairy tales, strange incidents and almost hallucinatory journeys, a very unsettling aura is engendered. It is all very allusive and suggestive, demanding of the reader a great exercise of the imagination. I suppose that Lovecraft had a greater imagination than mine (no great surprise there, though!), because I was left wanting a bit more from this tale. Still, some pretty eerie stuff. The oft-anthologized "The Great God Pan" is up next, to my mind the strongest story of the bunch. In this one, a scientist performs a brain operation on a young woman to (again) pierce the veil that obscures an ultimate reality. Seventeen years later, a mysterious, debauched woman causes a rash of suicides in London high society, as a small group of men tries to figure out just what is going on. Reading like a late 19th century detective story crossed with the supernatural, this is one bravura piece of work from Mr. Machen, and concludes in a suitably gruesome and gooey manner. The story is a bit too dependent on coincidence in its telling, but remains most impressive. Finally, in my Borzoi edition, is "The Inmost Light," still another tale of a scientist trying to peer behind the curtain to behold a truer reality. Here, another woman is the subject of an experiment that produces horrifying results. The described image of Mrs. Black's hideous face in an upstairs window, as seen by our narrator from some distance away, is one that lingers in the memory. As in "The White People" and "The Great God Pan," most of the horrors are suggested rather than spelled out in this tale, which may be a disappointment to a modern reader steeped in the current tradition of gore and grue, but there is no denying the chilling mood that these stories can evoke.

I should perhaps mention here that "The House of Souls" was NOT that easy a read for me. There are dozens of references to English life of a century or more ago that may mean little to the 21st century reader (just what IS an "A.B.C. girl," anyway?), not to mention much British slang, Latin expressions and so on. A detailed street map of London proved invaluable to me as I read this book. Still, a little effort in these matters always results in a deeper appreciation, and there surely is much to appreciate in "The House of Souls." It is certainly well worth any reader's time. Thanks, T.E.D., and thanks, H.P.!

Contains an especial gem
All of Machen's work is worth reading, but of the four novellas in this collection "A Fragment of Life" is itself entirely worth the price of admission.In this tale, Machen excels himself in creating a moving, human tale, full of wonder and joy (and so unlike his more common "Buckets o' Grue" material).A fine tale, plus three more that are effectively a bonus read.

Essential Reading
Machen (1863-1947) stands as one of the great figures in "weird", or supernatural, literature. This plain but functional reprint of the 1922 U.S. edition of "The House of Souls" contains two of his finest works in the genre - "The White People" and "The Great God Pan".

The book opens with an introduction, penned by Machen, which provides insight into the writing of the pieces within and into Machen himself.

The first of the four novellas, "A Fragment of Life", concerns the awakening of an "ordinary" man to his mystic and real self. This piece, rather subtle and slow moving, may require rereading for full appreciation.

"The White People" takes us into the pages of a journal written by a young girl who has been privy since early childhood, via her nursemaid, to ancient and arcane secrets. The journal is the gist of this story and is quite a gripping mix of fantasy and myth (yes, there is a difference). The narrative framework around the journal introduces us, via the discussion of two protagonists, to Machen's fascinating theories about good and evil.

"The Great God Pan" concerns the appearance of the title entity into the everyday world of men through the agency of a more or less typical "mad doctor"; or, as Machen describes the character, a practitioner of "transcendental medicine".

The fourth and final story, "The Inmost Light", is not among my favorites in the Machen cannon. Nonetheless, the narrative about another doctor dabbling in occult realms is an effective mystery and an enjoyable read.

All in all, an excellent collection from an excellent writer and requisite reading for any serious student of supernatural fiction. ... Read more

Product Description
A young man's quest for beauty through literature, love, drugs and dreams becomes a mystical, lyrical classic from the father of supernatural horror. There is a foreword by Catherine Fisher one of whose acclaimed "Oracle" trilogy was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and is an international bestseller translated into over 20 languages. Originally published in 1907, it is widely regarded as Machen's finest lyrical work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Worst edition - completely shameful!
I purchased this edition of Hill of Dreams published by Wildside Press and after only 10 pages in I had to stop because I encountered half a dozen spelling errors. I contacted them to make them aware of the problems and they claimed it's not theirs but that it's an "Alan Rodgers" book (even though it has their logo, web site and ISBN number). I wasn't looking for a refund but this fear might explain why they reacted this way; and Mr. Rodgers doesn't answer his emails in any case.

I want to caution anyone who might be tempted to purchase books from these people. They do nothing to enhance the literary merit of so-called "supernatural fiction" and may in fact hurt it.
Dover puts out a very affordable and reasonably priced edition but there are other options such as a forthcoming edition from Parthian Press:

http://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Machens-World-Library-Wales/dp/1906998167/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264024508&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Great-God-Pan-Hill-Dreams/dp/0486443450/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264024461&sr=8-3

Arthur Machen's autobiographic masterpiece
Arthur Machen, one of the 20th Century's most talented writers of supernatural horror fiction, wrote Hill of Dreams, his autobiographic novel, in 1922. The novel concerns a gifted young writer, Lucien Taylor, whose calling to write great (not just good) works of literature dooms him to self-destruction.

The novel follows Lucien's life from boyhood until his mid-twenties. Lucien grows up in a rural village in Wales near the ruins of an ancient Roman fortress (Machen himself grew up in Caerleon, Wales near the ruins of the Roman citadel, Isca Silurum). While exploring these ruins, Lucien undergoes a mystical awakening and becomes fascinated with ancient Roman culture, paganism and the supernatural. His imagination is so captured, it is only a matter of time until he starts to write fiction with supernatural and pagan themes.

While still in his teens, Lucien sends a manuscript to a publishing firm. The publisher rejects the manuscript. A few months later, Lucien purchases a newly-published novel which contains entire chapters lifted from his "rejected" manuscript. Saddened and angered, Lucien again wanders to the Roman ruins. There, he happens to meet a neighbor girl and has a sexual encounter which he associates with the fauns and nymphs of Roman mythology.

Lucien's imagination is so active that the border between reality and fantasy is sometimes blurred. In an effort to reach new heights of imagination and expression, Lucien begins to induce mystic experiences and trances. He dabbles in the occult, engages in masochistic rituals and starves himself to induce visions. His neighbors and relatives notice the changes in Lucien and encourage him to eat, to get plenty of rest, to give up writing and to pursue a real occupation.

Unexpectedly, Lucien receives an inheritance which enables him to move to London and devote himself to writing full time. By this time, Lucien is caught in a downward spiral of increasingly disturbing visions, induced by a number of unhealthy methods. He manages to completely erase the border between fantasy and reality, but ironically, he has so disabled himself that he can no longer write coherently.

Machen's story reads almost like poetry and is told in an artful, subtle fashion. The imagery of the first chapter is indescribably beautiful. The final four chapters, detailing his character's descent into insanity, are vivid and horrific. Machen describes the final sensations of a dying brain so vividly and in such detail that I cannot help but wonder how close Machen came to the same fate. Hill of Dreams is among the finest portrayals of the self-destructive artist, ranking with Coleridge's Kubla Khan, Mann's Doctor Faustus and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantasique. Through repeated allusions to Poe, Coleridge and DeQuincey, Machen pays tribute to other great writers who have tried the same path to greatness. Although Machen has achieved cult icon status (due, in part, to his role in the creation of the Angel of Mons legend), he is underrated as an author. I am greatly impressed with all of his works that I've read thus far. Hill of Dreams is the most impressive of his works.

Lyrical
"The Hill of Dreams" is arguably Machen's finest work, and that is saying something.While there is definitely a story and most especially interesting characterization, the star feature of this jewel of a novel is Machen's rich descriptive prose, virtually prose poetry.It possesses exactly the dreamlike quality the story demands, and becomes a dream itself, a vision of rural beauty, into which the reader may enter.The lush prose, which seems to be supporting the story as a river supports and carries a boat, is eventually seen to have been a necessary tool, and all the elements of story-telling come together at the finale to round off a work of terrible beauty.

Hill of Dreams

Arthur Machen, master of the macabre, created something a little bit different in this book. Coming from a childhood background that left him lonely and prone to living in imaginative worlds himself, the main character here is exactly the same. Lucien Taylor, unable to attend Oxford because of a lack of money, "lives" in his father's library. He is particularly attracted to ancient history and magic and hopes to become a writer. This hope is crushed, however, and, with the help of Annie Morgan, a woman who loves him, he escapes into an imaginary world of ancient times. There he remains, totally self-absorbed (to the chagrin of Annie), until he is jolted back to reality after receiving a small legacy. He then becomes an opium addict, which causes his death. Machen captures the moods of his characters perfectly, and this is the best of his books.

Gothic Vision of a Young Writer in 1890s London
Arthur Machen is better known for his "horror" tales such as "The Great God Pan". However, there is more to Machen that that. Machen believed in a quality of literature (and life) that cannot be pinned down - a sort of magic.

When he first came to London from rural Wales in the late 1800s, he was involved in fin-de-siecle "magic" circles - such as The Order of the Golden Dawn. He translated "fantastic" tales and in works like "The Great God Pan" created his own vision of them. However, like Harold Bloom today, he was perhaps at his best when he wrote about literature, and he did this is three forms: directly, in "Hieroglyphics", autobiographically in "Far Off Things" and "Things Near and Far", and in a fictionalized manner in "The Hill of Dreams".

The Hill of Dreams is about a young writer from the country who goes to London and wanders its streets looking for inspiration, but finds himself caught up in the city's past and becomes alienated from those around him. It is like a Peter Ackroyd novel set from 100 years ago. There is also a magic there that is all Machen's own.

Machen is a writer worth getting to know, particularly in the books mentioned above. In the end, though, "The Hill of Dreams" is his masterpiece. ... Read more

Product Description
An unabridged edition of the two classics: The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams, with footnotes ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Great God Pan
As all Machen's works: Excellent!
Brilliant and delightful use of language.
For all those who enjoyed tv series like The Twilight Zone, Dr. Who or even Star Trek, writers like Machen, Blackwood, Bloch and J.L Borges, are key to understand the concept of parallel worlds or dimensions to ours and the existance of portals leading us to those places.
A dimensional concept that ancient civilizations like Romans, Greek, Maya and many other used to explain the contact and communication with ancestor.
It is not pure fear or massacres what makes me read writers like Machen, is the pure fact of enjoying the perfect use of literature to make us believe that imagination can become real.
It really is the Power of Imagination. ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains sixteen works by Welsh author Arthur Machen (1863-1947).He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella THE GREAT GOD PAN has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror.Stephen King called it "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language."

He also is well known for his role in creating the legend of the ANGELS OF MONS, a legend in which the spirits of dead English soldiers from the Battle of Agincourt protected British soldiers at the Battle of Mons in World War I.While fictional, Machen's newspaper account became the basis for the legend which was widely regarded as fact during the Great War.

This ebook is DRM free and includes an active table of contents with back-linking for easy navigation.


Contents:

The Great God Pan
The Shining Pyramid
The Three Imposters
The Red Hand
The Hill of Dreams
The White People
The Angels of Mons
The Inmost Light
The Islington Mystery
A Fragment of Life
The Secret Glory
The Terror
Dr. Duthoit's Vision
Out of the Earth
The Great Return
The Happy Children
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Forgotten Master of Horror
Arthur Machen is not read much today, but he was the best horror writer between Poe and Lovecraft. Some of his works have dated--he published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries-- but he was a beautiful prose stylist, and his best stories are still quite powerful. This anthology includes virtually all of his important works (as well as some dross). There is a lot of Machen here for a small price-- at least two complete novels, several long novellas and many short stories and novelettes.

If you are new to Machen, I would start with two short stories-- "The Shining Pyramid," a story which was a major influence on Lovecraft and is still quite frightening, and "The White People," a genuinely strange piece of work and quite unsettling in its own way.

"The Great God Pan" is probably Machen's most famous work, but in my opinion it has dated somewhat. The first chapter of this novella is still terrifying, and the ending is powerful enough, but there is a long middle section which is full of vague hints of sexual perversity that scandalized the Victorians but have lost much of their power to shock today. Still a worthwhile read, however.

"The Three Imposters" was published as a novel; it is actually a long series of intertwined short stories. Not all of them are good, but buried in this novel are two of the best short horror stories ever written-- "The Novel of the Black Stone" (involving the same "mythos" as "The Shining Pyramid") and "The Novel of the White Powder" (which works whether you read it as a straight horror tale or as an allegory about drug addiction). Don't miss them.

"The Hill of Dreams" is another full-length novel. A semi-autobiographical tale of a struggling young writer, it is beautifully written but rather slow-paced by modern standards. There is nothing supernatural in it, but the protagonist's psychological deterioration at the end is not without its own kind of horror.

During World War I, Machen wrote a short piece of fantasy called "The Bowmen," in which the archers of the Battle of Agincourt come to the rescue of British troops in France. The story caused a sensation-- thousands of people believed it was true-- and Machen rushed into print with a book called "The Angel of Mons," included here, which contained "The Bowmen" plus some other slight pieces of patriotic fantasy which haven't aged as well.

This collection is preferable to most of the other Machen anthologies available for the Kindle because it includes "The Terror," a long novella about a series of mysterious killings in the English countryside during World War I. "The Terror" is aptly-named; the last line will haunt your sleep.
... Read more

Product Description
Some of the finest horror stories ever written. Arthur Machen had a profound impact upon H.P. Lovecraft and the group of stories that would later become known as the Cthulhu Mythos. This first volume of Chaosium's Arthur Machen collection begins with the chilling "The Three Impostors" in its complete form, including the rarely seen sections "The Decorative Imagination" and "The Novel of the Iron Maid." Rounding out the first volume are "The Great God Pan," "The Inmost Light," and "The Shining Pyramid," all are excellent tales. Introduction by S.T. Joshi.

This book is part of an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu fiction focuses on single entities, concepts, or authors significant toreaders and fans of H.P. Lovecraft. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

It was the face of a woman, and yet it was not human...
Having read and loved many of H.P. Lovecraft's stories, I wanted to peruse the works of some of his influences, of which Arthur Machen is one. As an introduction to the works of Machen, _The Three Impostors and other stories_ did not disappoint. This anthology was collected by S.T. Joshi who has worked on several Lovecraftian-influenced story anthologies for Chaosium. He also penned the introduction which contains an excellent summary of Machen's life and an in-depth analysis of the following stories. This book contains the complete text of "The Three Impostors", a series of stories within stories with an over-reaching theme.These embedded stories, or "novels" as named by Machen, within the sections of "The Three Impostors" are self-contained and complete; I've read one of them collected by itself within another horror story anthology.

"The Three Impostors" follow the stories "The Great God Pan", "The Inmost Light" and "The Shining Pyramid". Machen evokes the atmosphere of Victorian London remarkably well along with a chilling, gas-lit feeling of powerful eldritch forces just beyond our ken creeping through into our dimension through the well-meaning but ill-advisable efforts of scientists exploring the limits of knowledge and perception. Reflective of Victorian sensibilities of his time, Machen uses subtle allusions rather than overtly describing the horrifying habits of the evilly inclined characters with much greater effect than if he went into coarse detail (not that he avoided outraged criticism from his Victorian readership this way!). Fans of Victorian literature and of H.P. Lovecraft will treasure this anthology of Machen's work, and will likely enjoy the following volumes published by Chaosium under the editorship of S.T. Joshi. Those with more modern inclinations might find Machen's styles somewhat dry and verbose, but if you keep an open mind, you'll find there's a lot to get out of the unsettlingly disturbing stories of Arthur Machen.

Marvelous Machen
Subtle but penetrating, Arthur Machen's sinuous prose slips over the reader like a chill London fog. The path he traces in the novella and three short stories that comprise this book veers from the mundane course of daily life into searing glimpses of what haunts the periphery of the known.
A momentary vision of that horror splinters the mind of the seer and cracks open a doorway to the world in "The Great God Pan."Cryptic markings and the disappearance of a girl in the hills of the countryside lead to a shattering revelation in "The Shining Pyramid."
Take the journey with Machen, and by the end you'll agree with one of his characters in "The Three Impostors" ..... "that matter is as really awful and unknown as spirit, that science itself but dallies on the threshold, scarcely gaining more than a glimpse of the wonders of the inner place."

Excellent fantasy horror
I bought this book thinking it would make for good reading around Halloween and I could not be more pleased.Arthur Machen's tales spin together cult science, mysticism, and Victorian horror to create very atmospheric stories that touch on the darkest human fears.An innocent investigator often narrates these tales after being drawn into a deeper investigation of a news headline that has thrilled the public - getting pulled into the dark secrets that underlie the headline and have been overlooked or ignored by the officials.

A great addition to any weird library, from this Welsh seer of the hidden
First of all, a warning; do NOT read the introduction to Machen by S. T. Joshi strangely placed in the front of the book before you read the stories. The otherwise excellent introduction contains spoilers to all the stories, something I thankfully noticed at an early time. Being part of my effort to "branch out" beyond H. P. Lovecraft, I purchased all the three books by Arthur Machen that has been published by Chaosium. The tales within turned out to be excellent, and I quickly saw why HPL praised Machen so highly. Even though parts of the tales no longer appear as "shocking" as they once did, with their horror being centred on "sex and pagans", they still have a mild discomfort to offer, and the final tale of the book is, as we shall see, quite the masterpiece.

The first tale is "The Great God Pan", a very good tale, but as I've said; time has not been kind to this. A naked God in the forest don't exactly scare or shock people these days, at least not in the way that Machen intended. Although, it should be noted that I'm not the type of "conventional Christian" that Machen had in mind as his audience when he wrote it. The tale details an experiment gone "wrong", where a young girl sees and interacts with the ancient heathen god Pan. The result pops out nine months later, and several horrific incidents spawn from this. A fine tale, but a bit dated.

The second tale is much more to my taste, "The Inmost Light" (and for fans of the marvellous English musical group Current 93, I assume this is where Tibet got his title), also a taste centred around an experiment, where an occultist attempt to capture the essence of the body, "The Inmost Light", in a gem. A wonderful tale with an eerie feeling throughout.

The third tale is "The Shining Pyramid", a tale about the well-known "Little people", and one of the two best tales in the book. It unfolds somewhat like a detective novel, where two men find strange clues to uncanny activities in connection to the disappearance of a young woman in the Welsh countryside. The protagonists suspect the hands of the pre-Aryan inhabitants of Europe, and the tale is an effective weird tale, with Machen's wonderful prose really showing its best side.

The final tale, or I should say "tales", is the title story, "The Three Impostors", which is a strange creation of interlocking tales many in number. The tale is about a young man in London, a wannabe writer, who through random encounters with a few people hears several tales that all contain a few common elements; "a young man with large spectacles" and some weird and horrific incidents involving this young man. But alas all is not as it appears to be, and we are brought to several places in the search for this man, and what it all means is not revealed before the final phrases, where the real evil is revealed. This tale is among the best work I've read in the genre, and it really gives you the creeps at various parts, some of it being simply excellent.

Highly recommended!

More chilling than gore
This review is only about the title story, or rather, short novel. It is a circular story, as it ends where it begins. Characters have multiple identities and strange coincidences abound. It is a macabre joke, a foundational book of the cosmic horror a la Lovecraft and his Ctulhu mysteries. It is also a peak of the late Victorian era and much more. What makes it more than a genre story is the poetic quality of its literature. There are paragraphs that would make little perfect prose poems.

Along several months, or years, Dyson and Phillips meet different persons, who have in common the search for a shy and nervous young man with a little black moustache and big spectacles. Each one of these persons tells his or her story in inserted chilling tales, full of the imagery that would later become cliche. This is no cheap horror: it has a great sense of humor, it is not about axe-grinding nor about phantoms and exorcisms. It is pure cosmic horror, the horror of hidden forces and obscure memories of a remote past. It is a horror of strange gatherings and incognoscible conspiracies. The inserted stories are often compiled independently of their contextual frame: "The novel of the Dark Valley" is an adventure in the loneliness of the Rocky Mountains, with a pre-Kafkian touch that makes you go pale. "The novel of the Black Seal" happens in the Welsh wilderness, with a mad scientist and beings from the past. "The novel of the Iron Maiden" includes a collectionist of instruments of torture. "The novel of the White Powder" is about a substance that transforms humans into something indefinible and horrific. Finally, ""The story of the Spectacled Young Man" closes the circle and "explains" everything.

Like a good Englishman, Machen is a master of the understatement. More than showing, he insinuates to let the readers feel for themselves all the weight of the horror of the world, the mysteries that haunt us, and the strangeness of this life. Little surprise, then, that this was one of Jorge Luis Borges's favorite books, since much of his beloved subjects are here: ancient and undecipherable languages; stories lost in time; mirror games; equivocal identities; implacable gods; and somber mansions. Much recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A mixed bag of Welsh weird tales
This is the third and final book in the Chaosium trilogy consisting of material from the early 1900's Welsh author, Arthur Machen. H. P. Lovecraft was a huge fan of a lot of his work, and this is a book put together in large part by S. T. Joshi, author of the prizewinning Lovecraft-biography. Whereas the two previous books were mostly larger tales or a few big ones with an addition of miscellaneous material, this is mostly miscellaneous material. Even though Joshi in his introduction mentions several pieces of unenclosed material as read worthy, he has still added an unabridged edition of the tale "The Terror", hence the title. This seems like a very strange choice to me; why not just include the other material referred to, instead of adding the same tale that came in the previous book, if in a slightly different version? A strange choice. The tale is fine until the end, when the badly chosen ending comes, which really ruins an otherwise fine tale.

The other tales included that I enjoyed were for example "The Lost Club", about a secret club for the rich elite in London, where each time one of the members is chosen to disappear from this earth. Quite original and creepy. "Johnny Double", a fine and amusing tale about an evil doppelganger wrecking someone's life without his knowledge. Don't you suspect you may have had someone like that too, after a night on town? I sure have, since someone looking exactly like me occasionally in my youth was rumoured to be quite the idiot after a G&T too many, but it couldn't have been me, so... ;-)

There's "Change", a great tale about the ancient European phenomenon of the "Changeling", something I in all honesty tend to not disregard at all in real life, but which would explain a thing or two sometimes. Another tale that I loved is "Out of the Picture", a tale very much in relation to Lovecraft's famous "Pickman's Model". Wonderful!

Apart from this the rest of the tales are a very varying mix of tales, some simply bad, some mediocre and some very much read worthy without having that tiny extra. I still highly recommend this book, since the good ones are tales you simply have to read if you like the genre.

Third in Chaosium's series on Arthur Machen
When I first read THE TERROR & OTHER TALES, I was under the impression from ST Joshi's introduction that he thought Arthur Machen's remaining works (the ones printed in this volume) were of poor quality.I spent the rest of the book determined to prove him wrong.Although I like Joshi as an editor (much better than Robert Price and his higher-criticism hangups), I think that academics sometimes become too focused on purity of form and lose sight of otherwise good writing.I personally like all of Arthur Machen's writing, both the cosmic horror and the everyday gone wrong.I was pleased to see, however, than when I reread the introduction I found that Joshi now agreed with me :)

Chaosium has previously produced 2 novels of Arthur Machen's fiction: THE THREE IMPOSTERS AND OTHER STORIES (which primarily contains "The Great God Pan" and the title story "The Three Imposters", which is actually a series of short stories) and THE WHITE PEOPLE AND OTHER STORIES (which contains "The White People" which heavily influenced HPL, "Ornaments in Jade", and "A Fragment of Life").THE TERROR is the third (and presumably last) of the Arthur Machen line; I would call it a grab bag of anything remaining of Machen's work that is fit to print.

Machen's story "The Terror" is the title piece for this collection, and oddly it was the story I liked the least.It's about the animal kingdom turning on humanity during WW I, but the government is doing a coverup.Frankly it is somewhat slow and dry, and Machen seemed to be making a point rather than telling a story.Interestingly, at the end of "The Terror", the investigators find a farmhouse where some people took refuge from the "Terror" and read their diary - I was struck by the similarity to zombie movies (!) of all things, and I now wonder if George Romero had this story in mind when scripting "Night of the Living Dead"?Stranger things have happened...

The rest of the collected stories seem to me to be quieter, more prosaic stories where something has gone weird and it may be beyond the power of anyone to fix.Sometimes Machen will insert himself into the story as an ordinary journalist, a man interested in the story but with little power to affect the outcome.In style and substance, the remainder reminds me of MR James, which is high praise indeed.

Some of the better stories here are "The Lost Club" (which is distinctly eerie in finding the secret group of wealthy and famous, where at each gathering one member disappears), "The Dover Road" (which is sort of a ghost story but involves something more like spiritualism), and "Change" (where the children encounter something like "the White People" of Machen's earlier work).Some, like "The Islington Mystery", "Out of the Picture", and "The Bright Boy" are about criminals and their misdeeds, but there is some supernatural element that twists the whole thing into some horrible aspect.I can defintiely see hints and phrases that HPL would pick up on and use in some of his work; also, the two were writing at the same time towards the end of Machen's life, so perhaps there was a common style of the times for them to use.

I can highly recommend this anthology as being worth collecting.

Machen, An Incomparable Mystic
Arthur Machen is, of course, one of the preminent weird fiction writers of the early 20th century. Working at the same time as the Decadents, but most decidedly not one of them, his works would influence such writers as Lovecraft and his circle, as well as modern masters like Peter Straub.

The Terror is Chaosium's third volume of Arthur Machen's work, and as can be expected the best stories can be found in the previous two volumes. Editor S.T. Joshi admits as much in his introduction, but The Terror is still a worthy read.

"The Terror" is the same story featured in The White People, however this is the compete version, and the additions are most welcome. Most of the other stories do not reach such heights of sustained suspense as this story, the largest of the collection. "The Lost Club" deals with two men stumbling on a gentlemen's club that may be far more ominous than they first believe. "Munitions of War" is tale of ghosts and war. "The Islington Mystery" asks if a man can be a murderer if there's no body. "Johnny Double" concerns a boy who cannot possibly be in two places at once... but is. "The Cosy Room" also deals with a murder, but is it his guilt or the chase that drives him over the edge? "Opening the Door" deals with a man who literally disappears through a mysterious door in his garden. "The Children of The Pool" deals with a malignant genius loci that gives literal birth to the monstrous beings lurking within unwary visitors. "The Bright Boy" is an implausible story concerning a little boy who is not what he seems. In "Out Of The Picture,"the subject of an artist's paintings menaces London. "Change" harkens back to Machen's early work concering the Little People; while on vacation in a sleepy Welsh town a family finds out just why the locals keep their lights on at night. "The Dover Road" deals with the mystery of a man who disappears within a haunted house... "Ritual," the final story, continues Machen's fascinations with children and pagan remnants of the dim past.

On the whole, these stories do not match Machen's earlier works... but at times the chills are just as sharp as they used to be... witness the first half of "The Dover Road," "Change" and "The Terror." If you like Arthur Machen's work you are well advised to read this book. If you're merely a fan of Lovecraft's predecessors or of Victorian/Edwardian fiction in general, try the previous Chaosium Machen collections first. ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains ten of the best works by Welsh author Arthur Machen (1863-1947).He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella THE GREAT GOD PAN has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror.Stephen King called it "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language."

He also is well known for his role in creating the legend of the ANGELS OF MONS, a legend in which the spirits of dead English soldiers from the Battle of Agincourt protected British soldiers at the Battle of Mons in World War I.While fictional, Machen's newspaper account became the basis for the legend which was widely regarded as fact during the Great War.

This ebook is DRM free and includes an active table of contents with back-linking for easy navigation.


Contents:

The Great God Pan
The Shining Pyramid
The Three Imposters
The Red Hand
The Hill of Dreams
The White People
The Angels of Mons
The Inmost Light
The Islington Mystery
A Fragment of Life
... Read more

Product Description
Three famous works by Arthur Machen-The Great God Pan, The Hill of Dreams, and the Angels of Mons-in one volume with an introduction by Catherine Mintz. Copper Penny Press books are in an easy to read and easy to read aloud sixteen point type format. ... Read more

Product Description
Machen's classic tales of angelic intervention on behalf of the English in World War I. Includes an introduction and postscript about the phenomenon that Machen inadvertently touched off. ... Read more

Product Description
The Haunters and the Haunted is a collection of fifty-seven ghost stories -- including famous literary works, bits of myth and folklore, and even regional accounts. Among these stories are "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe, a story about an unnamed narrator who visits his friend Roderick Usher. Roderick is ill and the narrator wishes to improve his mood by spending time with him, reading to him, listening to the music Roderick composes. But as he spends more time at the House of Usher, he realizes that there is something strange about Roderick and there's something even stranger about the house.e must escape this house before this strangeness of being infects him as well.Other stories in this anthology include Thomas Hardy's "The Superstitious Man's Story," Sir Walter Scott's "Wandering Willie's Tale," and many others. ... Read more

Product Description
He was pondering these problems one evening in a house of call in the Strand, and the obstinacy with which the persons he so ardently desired to meet hung back gave the modest tankard before him an additional touch of bitter. As it happened, he was alone in his compartment, and, without thinking, he uttered aloud the burden of his meditations. `How bizarre it all is!' he said, `a man walking the pavement with the dread of a timid-looking young man with spectacles continually hovering before his eyes. And there was some tremendous feeling at work, I could swear to that.' ... Read more