Arthur Machen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Arthur Machen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Machen (/mkn/; 3 March 1863 15

December 1947) was a Welsh author and mystic of the
1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his
influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His
novella The Great God Pan (1890; 1894) has garnered a
reputation as a classic of horror (Stephen King has called
it "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English

Arthur Machen

language"[1]). He is also well known for his leading role

in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

Contents
1 Biography
1.1 Early years
1.2 Literary decadence in the 1890s
1.3 Tragedy and acting: 18991910
1.4 Journalism and the Great War: 1910
1921
1.5 The Machen boom of the 1920s
1.6 Final years: 19261947
2 Philosophy and religion
3 Legacy and influence
3.1 Genre fiction
3.2 Wider literary influence
3.3 Other fields
3.4 Literary societies
4 Selected works
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links

Machen circa 1905

Born

Arthur Llewellyn Jones

3 March 1863
Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Wales

Died

15 December 1947 (aged 84)

Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire,
England

Occupation Short story writer, novelist,

journalist, actor
Genre

Horror, fantasy, supernatural fiction,

weird fiction

Signature

Biography
Early years
Machen was born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, though he usually referred to the
county by its Welsh name, Gwent. The house of his birth, opposite the Olde Bull Inn in The Square at
Caerleon, is adjacent to the Priory Hotel and is today marked with a commemorative blue plaque. The
beautiful landscape of Monmouthshire, with its associations of Celtic, Roman, and medieval history, made a
powerful impression on him, and his love of it is at the heart of many of his works.

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Machen was descended from a long line of clergymen, the family having originated in Carmarthenshire.[2]
In 1864, when Machen was two, his father John Edward Jones, became vicar of the parish of Llanddewi
Fach with Llandegveth, about five miles north of Caerleon, and Machen was brought up at the rectory
there.[3] Jones had adopted his wife's maiden name, Machen, to inherit a legacy, legally becoming "JonesMachen"; his son was baptised under that name and later used a shortened version of his full name, Arthur
Machen, as a pen name.

Arthur Machen's birthplace at The

Square, High Street, Caerleon

Local historian and folklorist

Fred Hando traces Machen's
interest in the occult to a
volume of Household Words
in his father's Rectory library,
in which he read, at the age of
eight, an entrancing article on
alchemy. Hando recounts
Machen's other early reading:

The Rectory, Llanddewi Fach

Machen's childhood home

He bought De
Quincey's
Confessions of
an English
Opium Eater at
Pontypool Road
Railway Station,
The Arabian
Nights at
Hereford
Railway Station,
and borrowed
Don Quixote
from Mrs. Gwyn,
of Llanfrechfa
Rectory. In his
father's library he
found also the
Waverley Novels,
a three-volume
edition of the
Glossary of
Gothic
Architecture, and
an early volume
of Tennyson.[3]

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At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent
classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London,
where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise,
publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to
London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a
children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the
publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a
translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir
(Fantastic Tales) of Broalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited
English style became standard ones for many years.
In 1887, the year his father died,[2] Machen married Amelia (Amy) Hogg, an unconventional music teacher
with a passion for the theatre, who had literary friends in London's bohemian circles. Hogg had introduced
Machen to the writer and occultist A. E. Waite, who was to become one of Machen's closest friends. Machen
also made the acquaintance of other literary figures, such as M. P. Shiel and Edgar Jepson. Soon after his
marriage, Machen began to receive a series of legacies from Scottish relatives that allowed him to gradually
devote more time to writing.[4]

Literary decadence in the 1890s

Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of
Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success,
The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of
the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and
horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895.
The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However,
following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent
horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his
greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams,
Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story "The White People", and the stories which make up Ornaments
in Jade.[4][5]

Tragedy and acting: 18991910

In 1899, Machen's wife Amy died of cancer after a long period of illness. This had a devastating effect on
Machen. He only gradually recovered from his loss over the next year, partially through his close friendship
with A. E. Waite. It was through Waite's influence that Machen joined at this time the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn, though Machen's interest in the organization was not lasting or very deep.[6]
Machen's recovery was further helped by his sudden change of career, becoming an actor in 1901 and a
member of Frank Benson's company of travelling players, a profession which took him round the country.

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This led in 1903 to a second marriage, to Dorothie Purefoy Hudleston, which brought Machen much
happiness. Machen managed to find a publisher in 1902 for his earlier written work Hieroglyphics, an
analysis of the nature of literature, which concluded that true literature must convey "ecstasy". In 1906
Machen's literary career began once more to flourish as the book The
House of Souls collected his most notable works of the nineties and
brought them to a new audience. He also published a satirical work, Dr
Stiggins: His Views and Principles, generally considered one of his
weakest works.
Machen also was at this time investigating Celtic Christianity, the Holy
Grail and King Arthur. Publishing his views in Lord Alfred Douglas's
The Academy, for which he wrote regularly, Machen concluded that the
legends of the Grail actually were based on dim recollections of the rites
of the Celtic Church. These ideas also featured strongly in the novel The
Secret Glory which he wrote at this time, marking the first use in fiction
of the idea of the Grail's surviving into modern times in some form, an
idea much utilised ever since, as by Charles Williams (War in Heaven),
Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) and George Lucas (Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade). In 1907, The Hill of Dreams, generally considered
Machen's masterpiece, was finally published, though it was not
recognized much at the time.[4]

The House of Souls (London:

Grant Richards, 1906), with cover
designs by Sidney Sime

The next few years saw Machen continue with acting in various companies and with journalistic work, but
he was finding it increasingly hard to earn a living and his legacies were long exhausted. Machen was also
attending literary gatherings such as the New Bohemians and the Square Club.

Journalism and the Great War: 19101921

Finally Machen accepted a full-time journalist's job at Alfred Harmsworth's Evening News in 1910. In
February 1912 his son Hilary was born, followed by a daughter Janet in 1917. The coming of war in 1914
saw Machen return to public prominence for the first time in twenty years due to the publication of "The
Bowmen" and the subsequent publicity surrounding the "Angels of Mons" episode. He published a series of
stories capitalizing on this success, most of which were morale-boosting propaganda, but the most notable,
"The Great Return" (1915) and the novella The Terror (1917), were more accomplished. He also published a
series of autobiographical articles during the war, later reprinted in book form as Far Off Things. During the
war years Machen also met and championed the work of a fellow Welshman, Caradoc Evans.[4]
In general, though, Machen thoroughly disliked work at the newspaper, and it was only the need to earn
money for his family which kept him at it. The money came in useful, allowing him to move in 1919 to a
bigger house with a garden, in St John's Wood, which became a noted location for literary gatherings
attended by friends such as the painter Augustus John, D. B. Wyndham Lewis, and Jerome K. Jerome.
Machen's dismissal from the Evening News in 1921 came as a relief in one sense, though it caused financial
problems. Machen, however, was recognized as a great Fleet Street character by his contemporaries, and he
remained in demand as an essay writer for much of the twenties.

The Machen boom of the 1920s

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The year 1922 saw a revival in Machen's literary fortunes. The Secret Glory
was finally published, as was his autobiography Far Off Things, and new
editions of Machen's Casanova, The House of Souls and The Hill of Dreams
all came out. Machen's works had now found a new audience and
publishers in America, and a series of requests for republications of books
started to come in. Vincent Starrett, James Branch Cabell, and Carl Van
Vechten were American Machen devotees who helped in this process.[4]
Another sign of his rising fortunes was the publication in 1923 of a
collected edition of his works (the "Caerleon Edition") and a bibliography.
That year also saw the publication of a recently completed second volume
of autobiography, Things Near and Farthe third and final volume, The
London Adventure, being published in 1924. Machen's earlier works
suddenly started becoming much-sought-after collectors' items at this time,
a position they have held ever since. In 1924 he issued a collection of bad
reviews of his own work, with very little commentary, under the title
Precious Balms. In this period of prosperity Machen's home saw many
visitors and social gatherings, and Machen made new friends such as
Oliver Stonor.

Final years: 19261947

Cover of the U.S. edition of

The Secret Glory (New York:
Knopf, 1922), one of the series
of Machen's works published
by Alfred A. Knopf in the
1920s

By 1926 the boom in republication was mostly over, and Machen's income dropped. He continued
republishing earlier works in collected editions, as well as writing essays and articles for various magazines
and newspapers and contributing forewords and introductions to both his own works and those of other
writerssuch as the Monmouthshire historian Fred Hando's The Pleasant Land of Gwent (1944)but
produced little new fiction. In 1927, he became a manuscript reader for the publisher Ernest Benn, which
brought in a much-needed regular income until 1933.
In 1929, Machen and his family moved away from London to Amersham in Buckinghamshire, but they still
faced financial hardship. He received some recognition for his literary work when he received a Civil List
pension of 100 per annum in 1932, but the loss of work from Benn's a year later made things difficult once
more. A few more collections of Machen's shorter works were published in the thirties, partially as a result
of the championing of Machen by John Gawsworth, who also began work on a biography of Machen that
was only published in 2005 thanks to the Friends of Arthur Machen.[4]
Machen's financial difficulties were only finally ended by the literary appeal launched in 1943 for his
eightieth birthday. The initial names on the appeal show the general recognition of Machen's stature as a
distinguished man of letters, as they included Max Beerbohm, T. S. Eliot, Bernard Shaw, Walter de la Mare,
Algernon Blackwood, and John Masefield. The success of the appeal allowed Machen to live the last few
years of his life, until 1947, in relative comfort.

Philosophy and religion

From the beginning of his literary career, Machen espoused a mystical belief that the humdrum ordinary
world hid a more mysterious and strange world beyond. His gothic and decadent works of the 1890s
concluded that the lifting of this veil could lead to madness, sex, or death, and usually a combination of all
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three. Machen's later works became somewhat less obviously full of gothic trappings, but for him
investigations into mysteries invariably resulted in life-changing transformation and sacrifice. Machen loved
the medieval world view because he felt it manifested deep spirituality alongside a rambunctious earthiness.
Machen was a great enthusiast for literature that expressed the "rapture, beauty, adoration, wonder, awe,
mystery, sense of the unknown, desire for the unknown" that he summed up in the word ecstasy.[7] His main
passions were for writers and writing he felt achieved this, an idiosyncratic list which included the
Mabinogion and other medieval romances, Franois Rabelais, Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare,
Samuel Johnson, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert
Louis Stevenson. Those writers who failed to achieve this, or far worse did not even attempt it, received
short shrift from Machen.
Machen's strong opposition to a materialistic viewpoint is obvious in many of his works, marking him as
part of neo-romanticism. He was deeply suspicious of science, materialism, commerce, and Puritanism, all
of which were anathema to Machen's conservative, bohemian, mystical, and ritualistic temperament.
Machen's virulent satirical streak against things he disliked has been regarded as a weakness in his work, and
rather dating, especially when it comes to the fore in works such as Dr Stiggins. Similarly, some of his
propagandistic First World War stories also have little appeal to a modern audience.
Machen, brought up as the son of a Church of England clergyman, always held Christian beliefs, though
accompanied by a fascination with sensual mysticism; his interests in paganism and the occult were
especially prominent in his earliest works. Machen was well read on such matters as alchemy, the kabbalah,
and Hermeticism, and these occult interests formed part of his close friendship with A. E. Waite. Machen,
however, was always very down to earth, requiring substantial proof that a supernatural event had occurred,
and was thus highly sceptical of Spiritualism. Unlike many of his contemporaries, such as Oscar Wilde and
Alfred Douglas, his disapproval of the Reformation and his admiration for the medieval world and its
Roman Catholic ritualism did not fully tempt him away from Anglicanismthough he never fitted
comfortably into the Victorian Anglo-Catholic world.
The death of his first wife led him to a spiritual crossroads, and he experienced a series of mystical events.
After his experimentation with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the orthodox ritual of the Church
became ever more important to him, gradually defining his position as a High Church Anglican who was
able to incorporate elements from his own mystical experiences, Celtic Christianity, and readings in
literature and legend into his thinking.

Legacy and influence

Machen's literary significance is substantial; his stories have been translated into many languages and
reprinted in short story anthologies countless times. In the sixties, a paperback reprint in the Ballantine Adult
Fantasy series brought him to the notice of a new generation. More recently, the small press has continued to
keep Machen's work in print. In 2010, to mark the 150 years since Machens birth, two volumes of Machen's
work were republished in the prestigious Library of Wales series.[8]
Literary critics such as Wesley D. Sweetser and S. T. Joshi see Machen's works as a significant part of the
late Victorian revival of the gothic novel and the decadent movement of the 1890s, bearing direct
comparison to the themes found in contemporary works like Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. At the time
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authors like Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and Arthur Conan Doyle were all admirers of Machen's works. He
is also usually noted in the better studies of Anglo-Welsh literature. The French writer Paul-Jean Toulet
translated Machen's The Great God Pan into French and visited Machen in London. Charles Williams was
also a devotee of Machen's work, which inspired Williams' own fiction.[9]
Historian of fantastic literature Brian Stableford has suggested that Machen "was the first writer of
authentically modern horror stories, and his best works must still be reckoned among the finest products of
the genre".[10]

Genre fiction
Machen's popularity in 1920s America has been noted, and his work was an influence on the development of
the pulp horror found in magazines like Weird Tales and on such notable fantasy writers as James Branch
Cabell, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard,[11] Frank Belknap Long (who wrote a tribute to Machen in
verse, "On Reading Arthur Machen"),[12] Donald Wandrei,[13] David Lindsay[10] and E. Charles Vivian.[14]
His significance was recognized by H. P. Lovecraft, who in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
named Machen as one of the four "modern masters" of supernatural horror (with Algernon Blackwood, Lord
Dunsany, and M. R. James). Machen's influence on Lovecraft's own work was substantial. Lovecraft's
reading of Machen in the early 1920s led him away from his earlier Dunsanian writing towards the
development of what became the Cthulhu Mythos. Machen's use of a contemporary Welsh or London
background in which sinister ancient horrors lurk and are capable of interbreeding with modern people
obviously helped inspire Lovecraft's similar use of a New England background. Machen's story "The White
People" includes strange references to curious unknown rites and beings, an idea Lovecraft uses frequently
in the mythos.
Lovecraft pays tribute to the influence by directly incorporating some of Machen's creations and references,
such as Nodens and Aklo, into his Cthulhu Mythos and using similar plotlines, most notably seen by a
comparison of "The Dunwich Horror" to The Great God Pan and of "The Whisperer in Darkness" to "The
Novel of the Black Seal". Other Lovecraft tales with a debt or reference to Machen include "The Call of
Cthulhu", "The Festival", "Cool Air", "The Descendant", and "The Colour Out of Space".
His intense, atmospheric stories of horror and the supernatural have been read and enjoyed by many modern
horror and fantasy writers, influencing directly Peter Straub, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Karl Edward
Wagner,[15] "Sarban" (John William Wall),[16] Joanna Russ,[17] Graham Joyce, Simon Clark, Tim Lebbon,
and T. E. D. Klein, to name but a few. Klein's novel The Ceremonies was partly based on Machen's "The
White People", and Straub's novel Ghost Story was influenced by The Great God Pan.[18]

Wider literary influence

Machen's influence is not limited to genre fiction, however. Jorge Luis Borges recognized Machen as a great
writer, and through him Machen has had an influence on magic realism. He was also a major influence on
Paul Bowles and Javier Maras. He was one of the most significant figures in the life of the Poet Laureate Sir
John Betjeman, who attributed to Machen his conversion to High Church Anglicanism, an important part of

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his philosophy and poetry. Sylvia Townsend Warner (a niece of Machen's second wife, Purefoy) admired
Machen and was influenced by him,[18] as is his great-granddaughter, the contemporary artist Tessa
Farmer.[19]
Machen was also a pioneer in psychogeography, due to his interest in the interconnection between landscape
and the mind. His strange wanderings in Wales and London recorded in his beautiful prose make him of
great interest to writers on this subject, especially those focusing on London, such as Iain Sinclair and Peter
Ackroyd. Alan Moore wrote an exploration of Machen's mystical experiences in his work Snakes and
Ladders. Aleister Crowley loved Machen's works, feeling they contained "Magickal" truth, and put them on
the reading list for his students, though Machen, who never met him, detested Crowley. Other occultists,
such as Kenneth Grant, also find Machen an inspiration. Far closer to Machen's personal mystical world
view was his effect on his friend Evelyn Underhill, who reflected some of Machen's thinking in her highly
influential book Mysticism.

Other fields
In music, the composer John Ireland found Machen's works to be a life-changing experience that directly
influenced much of his composition. Mark E. Smith of The Fall also found Machen an inspiration. Likewise,
Current 93 have drawn on the mystical and occult leanings of Machen, with songs such as "The Inmost
Light", which shares its title with Machen's story. Some artists on the Ghost Box Music label like Belbury
Poly and The Focus Group draw heavily on Machen. It is an interest also shared by film directors like
Guillermo del Toro and Richard Stanley. Other notable figures with an enthusiasm for Machen have
included Brocard Sewell, Barry Humphries, Stewart Lee and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of
Canterbury.[18]

Literary societies
An Arthur Machen Society was established in 1948 in the United States and survived until the 1960s. It was
followed by the Arthur Machen Society based in the UK, in 1986, which in turn was replaced by the current
literary society, The Friends of Arthur Machen.[21]
The Friends of Arthur Machen (FoAM) is a non-profit international literary society founded in 1998
dedicated to supporting interest in Arthur Machen and his work, and to aid research. It publishes two
journals: Faunus, which reprints rare Machen articles and criticism of his work, and Machenalia. It fosters
interest not only in Machen but in events in which he played a key part, such as the Angels of Mons affair,
and organises psychogeographic excursions.
Prominent members include Mark Samuels, Roger Dobson, Javier Maras, Stewart Lee and R.B. Russell of
Tartarus Press. The society was nominated for a World Fantasy Special Award: Non-Professional in 2006.

Selected works
In approximate order of composition, with date of publication:
The Chronicle of Clemendy (1888) Tales within a frame.
The Great God Pan (written 18901894; published 1894) Novella. First published together with
"The Inmost Light" as Volume V in John Lane's Keynotes Series.
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"The Inmost Light" (1894) A scientist imprisons his wife's soul in a

shining jewel, letting something else into her untenanted body, but the
jewel is stolen.
"The Shining Pyramid" (1895) Strange arrangements of stones appear
at the edge of a young man's property. He and a friend attempt to decipher
their meaning before it is too late.
The Three Impostors (1895) A novel incorporating several short
stories, including "The Novel of the White Powder" and "The Novel of
the Black Seal", which have often been anthologised separately. Centers
on the search for a man with spectacles.
"The Novel of the Black Seal" A precursor of H. P. Lovecraft in
its subject matterthe protagonist gradually uncovers the secrets of
a hidden pre- and non-human race hiding in the Welsh hills, and the
true nature of a hybrid, idiot child fathered by one of them.
"The Novel of the White Powder" A man's behavior takes a
Blue plaque installed on
strange turn after he starts taking a new prescription. His sister
Machen's birthplace in
doesn't know if this is a good thing or a bad one.
"The Red Hand" (1895) A story featuring the main characters from
November 1997,[20]
The Three Impostors. It focuses on a murder performed with an ancient
under the auspices of the
stone axe.
UK Arthur Machen
The Hill of Dreams (written 18951897; published 1907) Novel.
Society
Ornaments in Jade (written 1897; published 1924) Vignettes.
"The White People" (written 1899; published 1904) A young girl's
diary, recounting tales told her by her nurse, and her increasingly deep delvings into magic. Often
described as one of the greatest of all horror short stories. Very subtle in its telling.
Hieroglyphics: A Note upon Ecstasy in Literature (written 1899; published 1902)
The House of the Hidden Light (Written in 1904 with Arthur Edward Waite. Only 3 copies were
published. Reprinted in an edition of 350 copies by Tartarus Press, 2003)
The Secret Glory (written 18991908; published 1922) A public school boy becomes fascinated by
tales of the Holy Grail and escapes from his repressive school in search of a deeper meaning to life.
"The Bowmen" (1914) In this story, written and published during World War I, the ghosts of
archers from the battle of Agincourt, led by Saint George, come to the aid of British troops. This is
cited as the origin of the Angels of Mons legend.
The Great Return (1915) The Holy Grail returns to a Welsh village.
The Terror (1917) In wartime Britain, a series of unexplained murders occur with no sign of who or
what is responsible.
Far Off Things (1922) First volume of autobiography.
Things Near and Far (1923) Second volume of autobiography.
The London Adventure (1924) Third and final volume of autobiography.
Dog and Duck (1924) Essays.
The Glorious Mystery (1924) Essays and vignettes.
The Canning Wonder (1925) Non-fiction study of the eighteenth-century mystery of the
disappearance of Elizabeth Canning. Machen concludes that Canning was lying about some or all of
her exploits.
Dreads and Drolls (1926) Essays (expanded edition, Tartarus Press: 2007).
Notes and Queries (1926) Essays.
Tom O'Bedlam and His Song (1930) - Essays.
The Green Round (1933) Novel.
The Children of the Pool (1936) Short stories.
Bridles and Spurs (1951) Essays.
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References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

12.
13.

14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.

Stephen King (4 September 2008). "Self-Interview". StephenKing.com. Retrieved 24 May 2012.

"Machen's Grandfather" at caerleon.net/ (http://www.caerleon.net/history/machen/text/page5.html)
Hando, F.J., (1944) The Pleasant Land of Gwent Chapter Nine, Arthur Machen, R. H. Johns, Newport.
Biography at the Friends of Arthur Machen website (http://www.machensoc.demon.co.uk/machbiog.html)
E. F. Bleiler. "Arthur Machen" in: Bleiler, E. F., ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Scribner's, 1985. ISBN
0-684-17808-7 (pp. 3513).
Leigh Blackmore (1985). "Hermetic Horrors: Weird Fiction Writers and the Golden Dawn". Shadowplay. Retrieved
25 March 2010.
Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics (London: Grant Richards, 1902), p. 11.
"Tracing the life of Caerleon mystic, Arthur Machen" by Mike Buckingham at southwalesargus.co.uk
(http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/9473709.Tracing_the_life_of_Caerleon_mystic__Arthur_Machen/)
Glen Cavaliero, Charles Williams: Poet of Theology (London, Macmillan, 1983) p. 55.
"Machen, Arthur (Llewellyn)", by Brian Stableford in David Pringle (ed), St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and
Gothic Writers. London : St. James Press, 1998, ISBN 1558622063 (pp. 38284).
Rusty Burke notes that Howard's early story "The Little People" is "clearly influenced by Arthur Machen's 'The
Shining Pyramid'" (Rusty Burke, "Notes on Miscellanea" in Robert E. Howard, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King .
New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, p. 193. ISBN 978-0-345-46154-4).
Long's poem is republished in Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. See The Annotated Supernatural
Horror in Literature, ed. S. T. Joshi (Hippocampus Press, 2000), p. 62.
Don Herron, "Collecting Donald Wandrei (http://www.donherron.com/collecting_donald_wandrei.html)", Firsts: The
Book Collector's Magazine, Oct. 1999: "Within a decade Wandrei began to write appreciations of his favorite
writers. His article 'Arthur Machen and The Hill of Dreams' appeared in the Minnesota Quarterly in spring 1926, and
led to an exchange of letters with the Welsh mystic."
"Vivian, E(velyn) C(harles)", by Jack Adrian in the St. James Guide To Fantasy Writers, edited by David Pringle. St.
James Press, 1996, pp. 57780 ISBN 1-55862-205-5
Benjamin Szumskyj, Black Prometheus: A Critical Study of Karl Edward Wagner, Gothic Press, 2007 (p. 21)
Peter Nicholls,"Sarban", in Supernatural Fiction Writers edited by E. F. Bleiler. Scribner's,New York, 1985. (pp.
66774)
Joanna Russ, The Country You Have Never Seen:Essays and Reviews; ISBN 0853238693 (p. 58)
Gwilym Games (ed), Machenology: Tributes to the Master of Mysteries, 2007.
"In Conversation With Tessa Farmer" (PDF). Antennae 1 (3): 1624. 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
Wisker, Gina (2005). Horror Fiction: An Introduction. New York & London: Continuum. p. 74. ISBN 0-8264-1561X. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
"Friends of Arthur Machen Website homepage: Horror Fantastic and Supernatural Fiction". Retrieved 27 September
2014.

Further reading
Doyle, Michael. "The Laureate of Strange", Rue Morgue #131 (March 2013).
Fox, Paul. "Eureka in Yellow: The Art of Detection in Arthur Machen's Keynote Mysteries." CLUES:
A Journal of Detection 25.1 (Fall 2006): 5869.
Games, Gwilym (ed). Machenology: Tributes to the Master of Mysteries, 2007. Offers a series of
tribute essays from those who have admired his work.
Gawsworth, John. The Life of Arthur Machen. [Leyburn]: Friends of Arthur Machen & Tartarus Press,
2005.
Goho, James. "Suffering and Evil in the Short Fiction of Arthur Machen". Journeys into Darkness:
Critical Essays on Gothic Horror. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. ISBN 9781442231450
Joshi, S. T. The Weird Tale. Austin: U of Texas P, 1990.
Reynolds, Aidan; Charlton, William. Arthur Machen. London: John Baker, 1963. Paperback reprint,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen

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Oxford: Caermaen Books, 1988.

Simons, John. "Horror in the 1890s: The Case of Arthur Machen". Bloom, Clive, ed. Creepers: British
Horror and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century. London: Pluto Press, 1993. ISBN 9780585359502
Speth, Lee. "Cavalier Treatment: More About Arthur Machen". Mythlore 8.1 (Spring 1981): 4142.
Sweetser, Wesley D. Arthur Machen. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1964.
Tearle, Oliver. Bewilderments of Vision: Hallucination and Literature, 18801914. Brighton: Sussex
Academic Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-8240-0059-2
Valentine, Mark. Arthur Machen. Bridgend: Seren Books, 1995.
Wagenknecht, Edward. "Arthur Machen". Seven Masters of Supernatural Fiction. New York:
Greenwood, 1991. ISBN 0313279608

External links
The Friends of Arthur Machen
(http://www.arthurmachen.org.uk/) Literary society with a
long Machen biography and links
Works by Arthur Machen
(http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Machen,+Arthur) at Project
Gutenberg
Works by or about Arthur Machen
(https://archive.org/search.php?

Wikimedia Commons has

media related to Arthur
Machen.
Wikisource has original
text related to this article:
Author:Arthur Machen
Wikiquote has quotations
related to: Arthur Machen

query=%28subject%3A%22Machen%2C%20Arthur%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Arthur%20Mac
hen%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Machen%2C%20Arthur%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Arthur
%20Machen%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Machen%2C%20A%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22
Arthur%20Machen%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Machen%2C%20Arthur%22%20OR%20des
cription%3A%22Arthur%20Machen%22%29%20OR%20%28%2218631947%22%20AND%20Machen%29) at Internet Archive
Works by Arthur Machen (http://librivox.org/author/2155) at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Arthur Machen (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Arthur_Machen) at the Internet Speculative
Fiction Database
"Machen, Arthur (http://sf-encyclopedia.co.uk/fe.php?nm=machen_arthur)" in The Encyclopedia of
Fantasy
Arthur Machen secondary bibliography (http://www.gothlitdata.com/machen.html)
Essays on Arthur Machen (http://www.waldeneast.fsnet.co.uk/machencontents.htm) by John Howard
"Machen is the forgotten father of weird fiction
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/sep/29/arthur-machen-tartarus-press)", The
Guardian, 29 September 2009
"Beyond the Veil: The Fiction of Arthur Machen (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/LibraryWithout-Walls/Beyond-the-Veil-The-Fiction-of-Arthur-Machen/ba-p/6059)", by Michael Dirda
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arthur_Machen&oldid=679904837"
Categories: 1863 births 1947 deaths Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
People educated at Hereford Cathedral School People from Caerleon Welsh fantasy writers
Welsh horror writers Anglo-Welsh novelists Welsh male stage actors Welsh journalists
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Welsh essayists Welsh translators Welsh literary critics Welsh Anglicans Welsh occultists
Decadent literature Victorian novelists 19th-century Welsh novelists 20th-century Welsh novelists
Cthulhu Mythos writers
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