March 3 marks the birthday of Arthur Machen (1863-1947). He is regarded as one of the influences on H. P. Lovecraft. among others.
I have a confession to make.
I’ve never read his work. (Don’t judge me.)
So rather than discuss a story I’ve read to commemorate Machen’s birth, I’m going to do something different. I’m going to ask what I should read.
Is there a particular Machen story that stands out among the others? Something that everyone who reads Machen should be familiar with? I ask this honestly, because I really don’t have a good idea where to start.
Let me know in the comments, and thanks in advance.
I have not read him either. From what I can tell, Field of Dreams was his claim to fame while The Great God Plan was his claim to infamy. I am not sure if you know the website below, but it lists all his work:
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/arthur-machen/
No,I hadn’t seen that link. Thanks.
I’d suggest The Great God Pan. I also liked his novel The Three Imposters and the story The White People. Any of those would be a good place to start.
Thanks.
The White People is one of my favorite horror stories of all time, so I might start there.
Chaosium Press once upon a time had a two or three volume collection of Machen that was rather reasonable back in the day. Alternatively a lot of his work is now public domain and can be found scanned online.
In addition to his proto-mythos work, Machen seems to be responsible for the so-called “Angel of Mons”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons
Keith, you might want to check out my two posts on Machen:
https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2018/3/4/i-dream-in-fire-but-work-in-clay-arthur-machen
https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2019/12/14/forefathers-of-sword-and-sorcery-arthur-machen
Machen’s occult detective, Dyson, is generally considered the first of his breed. You can find all the Dyson tales in THE DYSON CHRONICLES:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616462272/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1616462272&linkCode=as2&tag=dmrbooks-20&linkId=9df6baf0798c991c75b659e66e1ab90b
It contains all three of Machen’s “Little People” stories, which we know were a big influence on REH. Howard considered “The Novel of the Black Seal”, which is part of THE THREE IMPOSTORS–which is contained within THE DYSON CHRONICLES–as one of the top three weird tales of all time. Also, THE THREE IMPOSTORS is an excellent short novel with much more depth and authorial finesse than I’ve usually seen credited. There are layers upon layers of deception within it. All the plot elements revolve around the Gold Tiberius and the secret society that is searching for it.
“The White People” is excellent, as is THE GREAT GOD PAN, but I would go with THE DYSON CHRONICLES to start.
Thanks, Deuce. I’ll certainly check those out.
I always came across mentions of him in HPL but it was years before I finally found him. It was worth the wait. The Black Seal or The White People are definitely the places to start.
Thanks. I am definitely going to give him a try.