The House Of Souls By Arthur Machen Fiction Classics Literary Horror

Today, H.P. Lovecraft is regarded as one of the luminaries of the horror genre – but who were his literary influences? The often-overlooked work of nineteenth-century author Arthur Machen is said to have been very important to the formation of Lovecraft's inimitable style. This collection brings together four of Machen's weird, wonderful tales.

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Arthur Machen (1863 - 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 language". He is also well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

Combining in one volume four of Machen's classics from the '90s: A Fragment of Life; ; The White People; The Great God Pan and The Inmost Light. Lovecraft in his Supernatural Horror in Literature called Machen one of the four modern masters.

The House of Souls is a collection of four masterpieces of horror and mystery, by Arthur Machen, first collectively published in 1906. A Fragment of Life tells of a young couple, the Darnells, living in a London suburb. Machen gives an enormous amount of detail to illustrate the Darnells' life only to convince the reader (and Mr. Darnell) that this is just a fragment of life or part of a greater, but hidden reality. The White People was written in the late 1890s, and first published in 1904 in Horlick's Magazine. A discussion between two men on the nature of evil, leads one of them to reveal a mysterious Green Book he possesses. It's a young girl's diary, in which she describes in ingenuous, evocative prose her strange impressions of the countryside in which she lives, as well as conversations with her nurse, who initiates her into a secret world of folklore and ritual magic... The Great God Pan was widely denounced by the press, on publication in 1894, as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content. Today it is recognised as one of the greatest classics of horror. Machen's story was only one of many at the time to focus on the Greek God Pan as a useful symbol for the power of nature and paganism. The Inmost Light involves a doctor's scientific experiments into occultism, and a vampiric force instigated by his unrelenting curiosity regarding the unseen elements. A mysterious gemstone is the vampire mediator, soaking the soul of the doctor's wife and replacing it with something demonic. Dr. Black his own energy is then gradually sucked up by the stone too. In attempting to enter the forbidden and dark zone of the other worldly... Read more about Arthur Machen in the Post Scriptum of The House of Souls. Preview on vamzzz.com

Arthur Machen 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, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." He is also well known for "The Bowmen", a short story that was widely read as fact, creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

Introduction It was somewhere, I think, towards the autumn of the year 1889 that the thought occurred to me that I might perhaps try to write a little in the modern way. For, hitherto, I had been, as it were, wearing costume in literature. The rich, figured English of the earlier part of the seventeenth century had always had a peculiar attraction for me. I accustomed myself to write in it, to think in it; I kept a diary in that manner, and half-unconsciously dressed up my every day thoughts and common experiences in the habit of the Cavalier or of the Caroline Divine. Thus, when in 1884 I got a commission to translate the Heptameron, I wrote quite naturally in the language of my favourite period, and, as some critics declare, made my English version somewhat more antique and stiff than the original. And so "The Anatomy of Tobacco" was an exercise in the antique of a different kind; and "The Chronicle of Clemendy" was a volume of tales that tried their hardest to be mediæval; and the translation of the "Moyen de Parvenir" was still a thing in the ancient mode. It seemed, in fine, to be settled that in literature I was to be a hanger on of the past ages; and I don't quite know how I managed to get away from them. I had finished translating "Casanova"—more modern, but not thoroughly up to date—and I had nothing particular on hand, and, somehow or other, it struck me that I might try a little writing for the papers. I began with a "turnover" as it was called, for the old vanished Globe, a harmless little article on old English proverbs; and I shall never forget my pride and delight when one day, being at Dover, with a fresh autumn wind blowing from the sea, I bought a chance copy of the paper and saw my essay on the front page.

Four of Machen's classic novellas (A Fragment of Life, The White People, The Great God Pan, and The Inmost Light) collected in one volume.