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Arthur Machen (March 3, 1863 - March 30, 1947) was a Welsh-born author of fantasy and horror fiction. He was innate Arthur Llewelyn Jones, inside Carleon-on-Usk; later he was known as Arthur Jones-Machen.

He is known virtually all for his writing about a beginning of the 20th century, much of it composed around the quite short period of time in the Nineties. Late inside his career he became the journalist and an Anglican, and numbers of of his late works stand dated badly. Numerous come clumsy satires on science, materialism and Protestantism, all of which were anathema to Machen's mystical, Catholic temperament.

Inside 1924 he issued a collection of bad reviews of his have function, sustaining super little comment, under the title Precious Balms; & within 1922-23 he published deuce notable volumes of autobiography, Far Off Things & Items Touching & Far.

He endured impoverishment around late life, freed by the Civil list pension from 1932. His incredible, atmospherical stories of horror & a occult own influenced such modern writers when Ramsey Campbell and T. E. D. Klein. Klein's novel A Ceremonies was part according to Machen's "The White People", & Peter Straub's novel Ghost Story was influenced by TheGroovy God Pan.

There exists an extensive critical appraisal of Machen's function in S. T. Joshi's book The Weird Tale (1990).

Selected works
A Hill of Dreams - Semi-autobiographical, this recounts the young human's dreamy childhood within rural Wales, & his tries to produce the residing as an creator in the City. Usually thought to become Machen's greatest operate. A Awesome God Pan (1894) - a woman has her mind destroyed by an attempt to enable her to view the god of nature and severity. Years in a future, the young lady, Helen Vaughn arrives on the London social scene, disturbing numbers of young men & stimulating the children to commit suicide; it transpires that she is the monstrous offspring of the god Pan & the woman of the experiment. A Whiten Population - the young girl's diary, relation tales told her by her nurse, & her more and more deep delvings into magic. Typically described when one of a greatest of everthing horror short stories. Super subtle within its telling. A Novel of the Nigrify Seal - somewhat of the precursor of H. P. Lovecraft in its subject matter, the 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. A Novel of the Whiten Powder - The human's behavior requires the unknown turn when he starts ingesting the recently guide. His sister doesn't understand in case this occurs as skillful tool or even the bad a single... A Inmost Weak - The man of science imprisons his married woman's soul inside the shining jewel, allowing something else into her unoccupied system, however a jewel is purloined prior to he may reverse this... A 3 Imposters - The short novel composed of numbers of separate short stories, including 'A Novel of the White Powder' & 'A Novel of the Black Seal'. Centers on the research for the human by having spectacles. A Red Hand - An additional story featuring a independent characters from either 'A 3 Imposters'. It focuses in the slaying performed by using, of a lot items, an ancient stone ax. A Shining Pyramid - Strange arrangements of stones pop up at the edge of a young human's property. He & the friend attempt to decipher their meaning prior to these are as well late... A Terror - Around 1916 wartime Britain the series of unexplained execution occur by having there is no sign of world health organization or even what is responsible. A Wonderful Go to - A Holy Grail returns to a Welsh village. A Bowmen (1914) - In that story, written & published when you took World War I, a ghosts of archers from either the battle of Agincourt come to the aid of British troops. This is attributed (by a select few at least) when a origin of the Angels of Mons legend.

Arthur Machen
Brief biography and bibliography.

Arthur Machen by M.P. Shiel
A brief commentary on the author and his works, originally written and published in 1925.

Arthur Machen
Some background on the author.

The Friends of Arthur Machen
Includes biographical information, a bibliography, commentary, links to further resources and online texts of Machen's shorter works.


Arts: Literature: World Literature: Welsh






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