Arthur Machen, 1863-1947
Biographical note
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.
He is also well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
Machen's literary significance is substantial; his stories have been translated into many languages and reprinted in short story anthologies countless times. Machen's works was 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 authors like Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and Arthur Conan Doyle were all admirers of Machen's works.
Works
Fiction
- The Great God Pan [1894]
- The Inmost Light [1894]
- The Shining Pyramid [1895]
- The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations [1895]
[includes The Novel of the Black Seal and The Novel of the White Powder] - The Red Hand [1895]
- A Fragment of Life [written 1899–1905; published 1905]
- The Hill of Dreams [written 1895–1897; published 1907]
- Ornaments in Jade [written 1897; published 1924]
- The White People [written 1899; published 1904]
- The House of the Hidden Light [1904 with Arthur Edward Waite]
- The Secret Glory [written 1899–1908; published 1922]
- The Great Return [1915]
- The Terror : a mystery [1917]
- The Green Round [1933]
- The Children of the Pool [1936]
- Change
- Holy Terrors
- Out of the Earth
- The Islington Mystery
Autobiography
- Far Off Things [1922]
- Things Near and Far [1923]
- The London Adventure [1924]
Non-fiction
- The memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt / translated from the French by Arthur Machen [1894]
- Hieroglyphics: A Note upon Ecstasy in Literature [written 1899; published 1902]
- The Angels of Mons: the bowmen and other legends of the War [1915]
- Dog and Duck: A London Calendar et Cætera [1924]
- Dog and Duck
- The Trollers’ Catch.
- Why New Year?
- On Valentines and Other Things
- On Simnel Cakes
- ‘April Fool!’
- The Merry Month of May
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- July Sport; with Some Remarks on Young Mr. Blueface
- ‘A Thorough Change’
- Roast Goose; with a Dissertation on Apple Sauce and Sage and Onions
- Where are the Fogs of Yesteryears?
- Martinmas
- Christmas Mumming
- A Talk for Twelfth Night
- Some February Stars
- March and a Moral
- St. George and the Dragon
- The Poor Victorians
- Stuff — And Science
- On Holidays
- Six Dozen of Port
- The Custom of the Manor
- The Vice of Collecting
- Splendour
- How to Spend Christmas
- Adelphi: Farewell!
- The Art of Unbelief
- Note
- The Canning Wonder [1925]
- Dreads and Drolls [1926]
- The Man With The Silver Staff
- The Adventure Of The Long–Lost Brother
- 7B Coney Court
- The Strange Case Of Emily Weston
- The Highbury Mystery
- The Little People
- Madame Rachel
- Sir Benjamin The “Baron”
- The Campden Wonder
- The Man From Nowhere
- Morduck The Witch
- “Characters”
- “Doubles” In Crime
- How Clubs Began
- Polite Correspondance
- Casanova In London
- Mr. Lutterloh
- Before Wembley
- The Ingenious Mr. Blee
- The Gay Victorians
- Chivalry
- How The Rich Live
- A Lament For London’s Lost Inns
- More Inns
- Deadly Nevergreen
- Ceremony On The Scaffold
- Old Dr. Mounsey
- The Euston Square Mystery
- The Power Of Jargon
- Arthur Machen : A Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin / Vincent Starrett
