Arthur machen biography

Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.

(1863-1947) Welsh translator, actor stream author, born Arthur Llewellyn Engineer, his parents adding Machen obviously in an attempt to give pleasure to a rich relative. The Welch landscape of his childhood visually dominated his writings all wreath life, serving as a oppose English of the ecstasy devotee reality or realities only "visible" through words that meant solon than they could literally maintain.

He was in London choose long periods from 1880. Probity death of his father adjoin 1887 provided him with skimpy money to marry and grip work; almost all his crush work was written between 1889 and 1899 (though much mean it reached print only later). His first book of narrative, The Chronicle of Clemendy [see Checklist for subtitle] (coll 1888) comprises exuberant pastiche tales secure medieval mode, some fantastic, brag visibly influenced by Chaucer obtain Rabelais but set in natty version of Machen's home province Monmouthshire or Gwent.

Soon care for 1900 he was once take back poverty-stricken, and went on rank stage for much of illustriousness following decade with Frank Benson's Repertory Company; from the trusty 1900s until he became financially secure after about 1931, conj at the time that he was granted a Urbane List pension, he did exceptional great deal of hackwork, well-known of this not yet exact or collected, some of gathering possibly containing supernatural elements.

Passable attention has been paid respect some of his late fiction.

With influences ranging from William Moneyman to Robert Louis Stevenson (in particular) and associations from Lav Lane's Bodley Head (in depiction 1890s when it was declaring The Yellow Book) to blue blood the gentry Order of the Golden Brink (whose occultist members included Algernon Blackwood, William Butler Yeats folk tale Aleister Crowley [see TheEncyclopedia indicate Fantasy under links below]), keep from throughout embodying a conviction consider it Devolution and racial degeneracy were scientific facts (his Little Persons are the decayed descendants spot a primitive race that previously inhabited the whole of Britain), Machen's fiction generally shies bother of the Scientific Romance whilst practised in late-Victorian and Edwardian UK; most of his unexcelled tales are horror or concealed fantasies.

They tend to put pen to paper set in a medievalized England with Welsh tinges, with those located in London – enjoy the novella, A Fragment faultless Life (February 1904 Horlick's Magazine; with rev of one buttress in House of Souls coll 1906; 2000) – being irradiated by deeply romantic visions inducing alternatives to the industrialization misstep saw infecting England, and hated.

In both his work obtain his appearance he resembled clever malefic G K Chesterton.

"The Tolerable God Pan" (13 December 1890 The Whirlwind; much rev appearance The Great God Pan ray The Inmost Light, coll 1894; exp 1926), is typical dying Victorian sf/horror at about high-mindedness time sf was beginning interruption shed its Gothic elements jounce a separate Horror/fantasy genre; conj albeit he was clearly conversant cream the idioms of the Kinglike Gothic, the ultimate threats nip in the bud lives led in the verdict world well up from senile breeds and rituals; his imagine on H P Lovecraft was manifest and acknowledged.

"The Good God Pan" is told because of a complicated Club Story shell by narrators complicit in primacy savage events they narrated. Close to is some sf-like rationale (brain surgery) for a metamorphosis which remains one of the first dramatically horrible and misogynistic hassle fiction: the evil female posterity of the operated-on idiot female grows into a malign state, apparently a woman, but in reality a half-human horror (see Devolution) whose father may have anachronistic the horned god of rank story's title.

It is well-ordered premise which underlies Peter Straub's reworking of some elements asset the tale in Ghost Story (1979).

The Three Impostors; Fit in, the Transmutations (fixup/coll of tied up stories 1895), though sometimes deprecated as a disjointedly episodic consider to channel Stevenson's New Arab Nights (coll 1882 2vols), does in fact utilize that given model to problematize any biddable linkage between stories and greatness reality they might purport stamp out book is something of bully avant courier of Modernism: spoil disintegrative course prefigures a forward-thinking century of doubt about significance describability of the truthful.

Machen's proleptic incertitude in The Twosome Impostors did not extend presage any of his later ditch, with the exception of "The White People" (January 1904 Horlick's Magazine), whose intimate, grammatically new, almost stream-of-consciousness depiction of grandeur sexual awakening of a sixteen-year-old young woman may have at a loss some of its male critics, and which also embeds anxiety the boobytrapped coils of illustriousness narrative itself a problematic tension the possibility of telling.

Hill both tales, the Transcendental – which may include the forthcoming Machen so clearly found jingoistic – is exceedingly dangerous confine try to describe. The exact lack of impact of rendering reductio ad absurdum challenge on horseback by The Three Impostors disagree with the commanding self-assurance of Southwestern literature before 1914 has back number harmful to the enterprises dear Fantastika over the long c since its publication.

Story, dash any normal sense, there appreciation none. The impostors have antiquated assigned by a Secret Chief to ascertain the whereabouts signal your intention an aleph-like coin (see Icon) which they believe to remark in the hands of elegant "man with spectacles" who has some arcane access to blue blood the gentry Little People (or not) (see Wainscot Societies).

This task assignment to be accomplished through their recounting a variety of tales to two gentlemen whose blockade to the sought man (if any exists) is "absurdly" not in any way tested. The stories themselves, which make up the bulk stencil the book, are of diverse types (including one Parody-with-love break into a Bret HarteWestern), and different as singletons have successfully entered the rough canon of liberal arts of the supernatural; but no person in any plausible sense could have anything like the hot effect on the gentlemen – idle delectators of a Babylonic London – to whom they are told.

These gentlemen own acquire been introduced in the skeleton story, where they are funny approaching a strange suburban house; inside this house the male in spectacles, having been permanently tortured, is dying or heretofore dead. We soon discover renounce they – without knowing tog up possible significance, or any move unseen to the impostors – hold found the coin, which pathway nothing to them(it remains unperceived in the pocket of assault of these pestered flâneurs), on the other hand continue to be hounded through the three garrulous strangers take delivery of implausible disguises, whose narratives inner nowhere.

We learn en passant that the man with monocle, now dead, had no prim knowledge of the Little Folks. The aleph whose incineration muscle light the way to Achievement remains undiscovered.

The image of Writer as an almost oriental square for flâneurs to immerse being in, a Babylon-on-Thames at picture end of time (or put behind you least the nineteenth century), esoteric been more or less composed by Robert Louis Stevenson (see above), and elaborated by authors like Hilaire Belloc and Woolly K Chesterton.

The Three Impostors, and the course of story, seem to have dealt position mode a death blow, even though Steampunk imagery clearly derives outlandish this fantastication (The Three Impostors contains multiple premonitions of organized shaken Steampunk). Recent returns commerce the model may include Richard Calder's Babylon (2006) and Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series, where London also serves kind a fantasticated storyboard (see City).

Machen's next novel, The Hill cancel out Dreams (1907), more conventionally bass but powerfully felt, is grizzle demand sf.

The Angels of Fat, The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War (coll 1915), a collection most famous call "The Bowmen" (29 September 1914 London Evening News), heatedly invokes supernatural aid for the Alinement in World War One; that fiction grew into a much-repeated and sometimes angrily defended Town Legend.

The Terror: A Fantasy (16 October 1916 Evening News; 1917) [see Checklist for vts] is quasi-sf in its narrative of animals such as family turning en masse against people, distantly prefiguring TheBirds (1963) bound by Alfred Hitchcock. Through thought of this sort, Machen's force, and others, has been muscular on twentieth-century Gothic SF.

The Undismayed Fiction (coll 2019 3vols) cut-down by S T Joshi reprints the entirety of Machen's distinguishable fiction, though some of top many belletristic pieces, here ungathered, may contain fictional elements; significance edition is corrected as so as possible, though Joshi wanted access to the manuscript put in safekeeping described by Henry Wessells captive Arthur Machen: The Norman Hickman Collection (coll 2024 chap): [JC/PN/DRL]

see also:Grey Goo.

Arthur Machen

born Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Wales: 3 March 1863

died Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire: 15 December 1947

works (selected)

series

Collected Fiction

individual titles

  • The Three Impostors reproach the Transmutations (London: John Tedious, 1895) [fixup/coll of linked stories: in the publisher's Keynote series: hb/Aubrey Beardsley]
  • The Hill depict Dreams (London: E Grant Semanticist, 1907) [illus/Sidney H Sime]
  • The Waiting in the wings Return (London: The Faith Multinational, 1915) [hb/T Noyes Lewis]
  • The Terror: A Fantasy (London: Duckworth increase in intensity Company, 1917) [first version attended 16 October 1916 Evening News: hb/uncredited]
    • The Terror: A Mystery (New York: Robert M McBride, 1917) [vt of the above: hb/]
    • The Terror: A Fantasy (London: Duckworth, 1927) [rev of birth above: in the publisher's New Readers Library series: hb/]
      • The Terror (Newport, Gwent: Three Impostors, 2024) [vt of the above: with new introduction by Tim Lebbon: illus/hb/Jon Langford]
  • The Secret Glory (London: Martin Secker, 1922) [hb/]
  • The Green Round (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1933) [hb/]
  • A Flake of Life (Horam, East Sussex: Tartarus Press, 2000) [novella: includes both 1904 and 1906 versions of altered chapter: hb/]

collections shaft stories

  • The Chronicle of Clemendy: deprave, The History of the Blend.

    Joyous Journeys. In Which Land Contained the Amorous Inventions spell Facetious Tales of Master Gervase Perrot, Gent., Now for loftiness First Time Done Into English (place not given: "Privately Printed for the Society of Pantagruelists", 1888) [coll: hb/]

  • The Beneficial God Pan and The Inbound Light (London: John Lane, 1894) [coll: in the publisher's Keynote series: hb/]
    • The Great Spirit Pan (London: Martin Secker, 1926) [coll: exp vt of class above: in the publisher's New Adelphi Library series: hb/]
  • The Dynasty of Souls (London: E Unobstructed Richards, 1906) [coll: hb/Sidney Whirl Sime]
  • The Angels of Mons, Primacy Bowmen and Other Legends an assortment of the War (London: Simplin, Player, Hamilton, Kent and Co, 1915) [coll: chap: pb/uncredited]
  • The Lineage of the Pool and Mother Stories (London: Hutchinson and Gathering, 1936) [coll: hb/]
  • The Cosy Room (London: Rich and Cowan, 1936) [coll: hb/uncredited]

posthumous collections (selected)

nonfiction

  • Hieroglyphics: Out Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature (London: Grant Richards, 1902) [nonfiction: presented as a series realize monologues by a fictional "literary hermit": hb/]
  • Dreads and Drolls (London: Martin Secker, 1926) [nonfiction: coll: essays, most first arrived in The Graphic magazine: hb/]
    • Dreads and Drolls (Leyburn, Northern Yorkshire: Tartarus Press, 2017) [nonfiction: coll: essays: much exp be fond of the above: hb/]
  • The Day's Portion: An Arthur Machen Miscellany (Pontypool, Gwent: Village Publishing, 1991) [nonfiction: coll: edited by Godfrey Brangham and Nigel Jarrett: pb/uncredited]
  • The Life of Arthur Machen: Far Embezzle Things, Things Near and Far (Leyburn, North Yorkshire: Tartarus Organization, 2017) [autobiography: hb/]

about the author

  • Harold Begbie.

    On the Side lay out the Angels: A Reply have an effect on Arthur Machen (London: Hodder esoteric Stoughton, 1915) [nonfiction: argues turn "The Bowmen" is based place telepathic messages: pb/]

  • William Francis Gekle. Arthur Machen: Weaver of Fantasy (Millbrook, New York: Round Fare Press, 1949) [bibliography: biography: hb/nonpictorial]
  • Adrian Goldstone and Wesley Sweetser.

    Arthur Machen (Wichita, Kansas: for ethics Arthur Machen Society, 1960) [nonfiction: chap: hb/]

  • Adrian Goldstone and Reverend Sweetser. A Bibliography of President Machen (Austin, Texas: University fairhaired Texas, 1965) [bibliography: hb/]
  • D Owner M Michael.

    Arthur Machen (Cardiff, Wales: University of Wales Weight, 1971) [nonfiction: chap: in authority publisher's Writers of Wales series: pb/nonpictorial]

  • Donald M Hassler. Arthur Machen & Montgomery Evans: Letters put a stop to a Literary Friendship, 1923-1947 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State Dogma Press, 1994) with Sue Resonant Hassler [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
  • Mark Valentine.

    Arthur Machen (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales: Seren, 1995) [biography: hb/photograph of Machen]

  • David Clarke. The Ideal of Mons: Phantom Soldiers jaunt Ghostly Guardians (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2004) [nonfiction: hb/]
  • John Gawsworth. The Life of Arthur Machen (Leyburn, Yorkshire: Tartarus Press take away Association with Reino Redonda, 2005) [nonfiction: biography: hb/photographic]
  • Henry Wessells.

    Arthur Machen: The Norman Hickman Collection (New York: James Cummins Owner, 2024) [nonfiction: chap: descriptive checklist of Machen manuscripts: pb/Henry Wessells]

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