Η νουβέλα της μαύρης σφραγίδας

by Arthur Machen, Χρήστος Παπαϊωάννου (Translator)

Όπως και σε όλο σχεδόν το έργο του, έτσι και σ' αυτά τα πέντε διηγήματά του, Το Απόκρυφο Φως, Η Νουβέλα της Μαύρης Σφραγίδας, Οι Άσπροι Άνθρωποι, Το Έξυπνο Αγόρι και το Ν, τα ιδιαιτέρως ενδιαφέροντα, ο σπουδαίος ουαλός συγγραφέας Άρθουρ Μάχεν (1863 - 1947), διερευνά τη μυστικιστική αρχέγονη φύση του κακού, θεωρώντας το ωσάν θεμελιώδες στοιχείο ισορροπίας της Δημιουργίας. Το Κακό, υποστηρίζει, είναι ένα αβυσσαλέο πάθος και, κυρίως, ή αρχαία κληρονομιά μας. Έτσι, ένα "επιστημονικό" πείραμα αποκαλύπτει το κτήνος που ενυπάρχει μέσα στον Άνθρωπο. Απόγονοι αυτού του κτήνους, νανοειδή, τερατόμορφα πλάσματα που σκοτώνουν όποιον μπει στην περιοχή τους, κατοικούν στα βρετανικά νησιά μέχρι σήμερα. Ένα διαβολικό ζευγάρι κι ένα τερατόμορφο αγόρι είναι οι φυσικοί φορείς αυτού του Κακού που μοιάζει να μολύνει ακόμη και τη φύση. Η αιώνια σύγκρουση Καλού-Κακού παρουσιάζεται από τον Άρθουρ Μάχεν με έναν εντυπωσιακό τρόπο, σχεδιάζοντας έξοχα τη φοβερή διαμάχη αυτών των δύο αιώνιων μονομάχων.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Gothic, Lovecraftian, Weird Fiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1895

About the author

Arthur Machen was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His long story The Great God Pan made him famous and controversial in his lifetime, but The Hill of Dreams is generally considered his masterpiece. He also is well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.

In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.

Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.

Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.

Reviews

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Άρθρουρ Μάχεν, ο Ουαλός μυστικιστής,συγγραφέας μιας εκτυφλωτικά σκοτεινής μυθιστοριογραφίας της ανθρώπινης ψυχής και της υπερβατικής φανταστικής λογοτεχνίας.

Δημιουργεί μέσα απο τις μεταφυσικές και προσωπικές πεποιθήσεις του ένα απέραντο τοπίο υπερφυσικής ομορφιάς και μυθοπλασίας που απεικονίζει μύθους και παραδόσεις.
Στο τοπίο αυτού του αληθινού και ανείπωτου κόσμου κυριαρχεί το γοτθικό μυστήριο, η μυθολογική παράδοση, (δε λείπει ο πλούτος της ελληνικής μυθολογίας) ο μεσαιωνικός μυστικισμός, ο κέλτικος χριστιανισμός και οι παγανιστικές τελετουργίες.
Εδώ, η αρχέγονη φύση μεγαλουργεί, με τερατουργήματα οντοτήτων που κρύβονται πίσω απο θεούς -νεράιδες - νύμφες - τέρατα και πολλές διαβολικές παρεμβάσεις.

Το έργο του Μάχεν τονίζει διαρκώς τη λεπτή διαχωριστική γραμμή ανάμεσα στον εμφανή υλικό κόσμο και σε μια σκοτεινότερη απόκρυφη πραγματικότητα.

Μια μαγική πένα, ένας αναρχικός αλχημιστής που πειραματίζεται για να αποκαλύψει το «κτήνος»που ενυπάρχει στον άνθρωπο.

Ένας εξορκιστής του γήινου Κακού που το ταυτίζει με σατανικό θαύμα όπως αντίστοιχα το Καλό ταυτίζεται με τη θεϊκή παντοδυναμία.
Έτσι κι αλλιώς στον κόσμο του Μάχεν πολλοί κόσμοι του καλού και του κακού, τελείως διαφορετικοί μεταξύ τους, αλληλοεισδύουν ο ένας στον άλλον και επηρεάζονται.

Η προϊστορία της ανθρωπότητας πλημμυρίζει με σκιές τη φαντασία του που την αφήνει να διαρρεύσει μέσα στο μυαλό και την ψυχή του αναγνώστη με μια αύρα απίστευτης ομορφιάς και φρίκης.

Ολόκληρη η φύση μέσα σε αυτά τα διηγήματα είναι ερωτευμένη και τραγικά δεμένη με τις αρχαίες δυνάμεις, με την σκοτεινή παγανιστική λαογραφία και με τα ιερουργικά μιαρά μυστήρια.

Πάνω σε άγριους λόφους και εξωκοσμικά υπέροχα τοπία, αυτές οι δυνάμεις μολύνουν τα πάντα και διεισδύουν στο μυαλό με μηχανισμούς φρίκης διαλύοντας την ψυχική ισορροπία της σύγχρονης ανθρωπότητας.

Παράλληλα ζούμε το μεγαλείο της ομορφιάς του Κακού μέσα απο τελετουργίες γονιμότητας σε πράξεις ψυχικής και σεξουαλικής κοινωνίας.

Και στα πέντε διηγήματα ο συγγραφέας μας ψιθυρίζει με μια αύρα απίστευτης γοητείας πως σκοπεύει να εξερευνήσει το μεγαλύτερο απο όλα τα μυστήρια, το μυστήριο του ανθρώπου.

•Η μαύρη σφραγίδα: ο Εξηκοντάλιθος μια μαύρη πέτρα χαραγμένη με εξήντα γράμματα λατρεύεται απο μια εξωανθρώπινη ερπετόμορφη φυλή που ζει και διαιωνίζεται απο τα πανάρχαια χρόνια. Η ομιλία τους μοιάζει με άναρθρες κραυγές άγριων κτηνών κι εμφανίζονται πάντα σύμφωνα με τα χαρακτηριστικά της εποχής. Ο καθηγητής Γκρέγκ έρχεται σε επαφή με τις σκοτεινές αρχές της δημιουργίας.

•Το απόκρυφο φως: ο καθηγητής Μπλακ συνεργός και βοηθός του διαβόλου, φέρνει στο φως το τέρας, την άλλη όψη που υπάρχει μέσα σε κάθε άνθρωπο και αρκεί ένα έναυσμα ικανό να το φέρει στο φως. Να ανοίξει την πόρτα της Κολάσεως.

•Το έξυπνο αγόρι: Εδώ πρωταγωνιστούν ένα διεστραμμένο ζευγάρι που εκπροσωπεί την άγνωστη φύση του Κακού μαζί με ένα αφύσικο πλάσμα που είναι γιος τους. Η διαστρέβλωση της φύσης εκδηλώνει τα ζωώδη ένστικτα της.

•Οι λευκοί άνθρωποι: η φύση του Κακού είναι μεγάλο παθος της ψυχής. Μια μικρή ηρωίδα διαθέτει το σημάδι του κακού. Είναι απόγονος της Λίλιθ του θηλυκού βρυκόλακα. Μέσα απο περιπέτειες και δραματικά παραμύθια θα θυσιαστεί στο μαύρο βωμό της πίστης του Εωσφόρου.

•Ν: Μπορεί το παράθυρο ενός σπιτιού στο Λονδίνο να είναι το μεταβατικό στάδιο προς κάποιον άλλο κόσμο ή κάποιους άλλους προορισμούς;
Υπάρχει πραγματικότητα; Είναι αυτό που ζούμε;


Εσείς τώρα, διαβάζετε την κριτική μου και φθάσατε στο τέλος;;
Σίγουρα; Και παρέα με ποιους;;

🖤👻😈💀👻👿👽🖤

Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Machen story that features his “little folk”.

[Nickolas B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ιστορίες υπαινικτικού τρόμου μπολιασμένες με μύθους και θρύλους της Μεγάλης Βρετανίας. Ενδιαφέρουσες ιστορίες που όμως δείχνουν τα χρονάκια τους και κυρίως είναι επηρεασμένες από τις παγανιστικές και απόκρυφες θεωρίες του Άλιστερ Κρόουλι, μιας και ο συγγραφέας υπήρξε μια περίοδος που ήταν στην ίδια σέκτα με τον Κρόουλι.
Φυσικά η γραφή του Μάχεν για ακόμη μια φορά είναι εξαιρετική και κυρίως για αυτό το λόγο το βιβλίο διαβάζεται εύκολα και σχετικά ευχάριστα. Από τις ιστορίες ξεχώρισα την ομότιτλη και το "Απόκρυφο φως". Όλες οι ιστορίες έχουν το ίδιο σχεδόν μοτίβο. Απαγορευμένη γνώση, μυστικές κοινωνίες, νεράιδες, ξωτικά μάγισσες και πάει λέγοντας.
Για την περίοδο του Χαλογουίν νομίζω ήταν μια καλή επιλογή...

[Martin Conisby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seminal work of weird fiction (not horror) likely to induce a sense of uncanny awe in the sensitive reader rather than fear or lurid thrills. Machen's spooks are subtle, but they evoke deep resonance; the crescendo of tension is effectively wrought, the ending tinged with the sort of ambiguity that writers of this quality manage to make paradoxically satisfying.

[kostas vamvoukakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

σίγουρα ο μαχεν γράφει πολύ καλά και δημιουργεί ατμόσφαιρα... Αλλά μέχρι εκεί... χωρίς ουσιαστικό τέλος οι ιστορίες

[Sonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I'm steadily becoming a fan of the great Mr. Machen.

Like most short stories, I found The Novel of the Black Seal to be mysterious and open-ended. Unlike most other short stories I've read, I was compelled to keep reading.

Machen has a gift with setting wild country atmosphere and blending old world myths and legends into the modern day, cultivated man's world. Worlds which clash, but in a most satisfactory resonance.

[Dimos Kaniouras · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a marvelous victorian horror literature!!!
Its lke driving the first ever made automobile in 2023.
Fascinating and boring at the same time.E.A.Poe excluded.

[Vassiliki Dass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πολύ ενδιαφέροντα διηγήματα, από τα καλά γοτθικά γιατί τα περισσότερα που φημίζονται τα βρισκω βαρετά. Δεν μπόρεσα με τίποτα να διαβάσω το τελευταίο αν και το θεμα του ήταν πολύ ενδιαφέρον, πολλά ονόματα δρόμων και περιοχών του Λονδίνου που δεν γνωρίζω καθόλου λες και διάβαζα τοπογραφία. Το ομώνυμο διήγημα το βρήκα από τα πιο αδύναμα. Αντίθετα οι Λευκοι Άνθρωποι βρήκα ότι έχει εξαιρετικές περιγραφές, μεγάλη φαντασία και καταπληκτικό θέμα

[Kostas · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι η πρώτη μου επαφή με τις ιστορίες του Machen και γενικά μπορώ να πω ότι μου άφησε μέτριες εντυπώσεις.

Οι ιστορίες του, εκτός ότι είναι αρκετά παλιομοδίτικες, είναι και αρκετά «ρεαλιστικές» μιας κινείται πολύ γύρω από τον υποθετικό τρόμο.
Βέβαια έχει κάποιες ωραίες ιδέες αλλά από την άλλη ο Machen έχει το κακό στις περισσότερες ιστορίες να φλυαρεί αρκετά και πιστεύω θα μπορούσε άνετα να λείπει ένα κομμάτι τους, και ειδικά με την ιστορία «Το έξυπνο αγόρι» που παρεμπιπτόντως, πιστεύω είναι και η πιο αδιάφορη.

Γενικά πάντως για την εποχή τους δεν θα τις έλεγα κακές αλλά πλέον είναι ξεπερασμένες.
Αν ξεχώριζα κάποια ιστορία από αυτή τη συλλογή νομίζω θα επέλεγα «Το απόκρυφο φως».

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

“…I was to be a spectator of things far removed from the usual and customary traffic and jostle of life.”

(1895) “Seal” conjures up a jumble of antiquarian images: those embossed marks of authenticity; the seal of a letter or scroll, like the seven seals from Revelations, or the ring that produces the seal.

I had to dust off my mammoth Webster’s to find a definition that corresponds to Machen’s usage (since online dictionaries don’t bother), an act that itself felt Machenian. The closest I could find, deep in the entry, was: “a mark, sign or symbol serving as visible evidence of something.” In “Novel of the Black Seal” it refers to a talisman or stone with such markings.

“I have told you I was of sceptical habit; but though I understood little or nothing, I began to dread, vainly proposing to myself the iterated dogmas of science that all life is material, and that in the system of things there is no undiscovered land even beyond the remotest stars, where the supernatural can find a footing. Yet there struck in on this the thought that matter is as really awful and unknown as spirit, that science itself but dallies on the threshold, scarcely gaining more than a glimpse of the wonders of the inner place.”

This “extravagant romance,” as the narrator calls it, is one of the episodes stitched together in Machen’s book The Three Imposters, so I think any standalone version of it will necessarily bear marks of an editor’s scalpel. It’s a short story of occult horror, about what really happens to all those missing persons you read about in the papers. It’s much simpler and more straightforward than The Great God Pan. Machen informs you about the disappearance of a scholar and then goes back to the events leading up to it, measuring the tale out with clues that become increasingly sinister, and then wrapping up with an explanation. So the horror is never directly encountered. But you do get an awesome glimpse of it at the end. The solution to the mystery is pretty novel and, as in Great God Pan, tries to find a way to make the mystic both real and rational. Machen is not explaining it away. I think he wants to give the eldritch plausibility, by way of an even more wondrous materialism. File this along with the works of Conan Doyle, Haggard, Wells etc, where you can see the struggle of brilliant minds making desperate attempts to believe in the irrational and the spiritual (though Wells comes across as more placid), a sign perhaps that not all was well in this period with traditional faith.

Once again you have a character in a Machen story trying to say his wild theory is no more crazy than some other modern discovery, here gas lighting. The premise is that folk tales and rumors from antiquity have a basis in fact. Without going into the reveal too much, I just want to say I liked the idea that “the playful elves of Shakespeare are already far removed from the true original, and the real horror is disguised in a form of prankish mischief.” And the climax is wonderfully creepy. My version unfortunately truncates the story, creating however this superb denouement:

“Miss Lally stopped speaking and looked at Mr. Phillipps, with a glance of some enquiry. He, for his part, was sunken in a deep revery of thought; and when he looked up and saw the bustle of the evening gathering in the square, men and women hurrying to partake of dinner, and crowds already besetting the music-halls, all the hum and press of actual life seemed unreal and visionary, a dream in the morning after an awakening.”


______________________
Marginalia:

“It was in the early spring of 1894 that I set about the writing of the said "Three Impostors," a book which testifies to the vast respect I entertained for the fantastic, "New Arabian Nights" manner of R. L. Stevenson…”

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of 13 interconnected episodes from Machen’s 1895 novel The Three Impostors. With the context of that, the characters have more depth and there is some, only some, explanation as to why Miss Lally and Mr Phillips meet.

At the outset they argue about the supernatural over tea. Phillips is a rationalist, Lally was once, but ‘experiences even more terrible’ have changed her mind; she refers to one Professor Gregg, an entomologist. His work has impressed her, but he died on holiday recently, his body never recovered.
And so Lally relates the story of her acquaintance with Gregg, and how they spent a summer in a remote house in Caermaen, rural mid-Wales, once the headquarters of a Roman legion.

The fun really begins when Gregg hires a local teenager, Jervase, mentally weak, but a strong boy. He suffers fits, and it materialises may be a changeling, or fathered by a demon, a fairy of Celtic legend.
Machen is so wonderful to read because of the atmosphere he creates, all the while the reader doubting whether his tongue is buried in the side of his cheek. He uses dark humour like few writers I know, so much so, that it’s difficult to know when he is being serious, and when he isn’t.

Top quality stuff.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excerpt from Machen's story The Three Imposters, “The Novel of the Black Seal” is told by Miss Lally, the female imposter (one of three) who is a cult member desperately trying to find and murder "the man with the spectacles," who is a hapless academic that has made the mistake of pocketing an Ancient Roman coin which connects the modern cult to its Bacchanalian origins. The mystery being whether she is telling the truth or inventing a mystical parable. The story she tells Mr. Phillipps relays how Professor Gregg, the protagonist who over many years 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.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suspect, in fact, that most of this story will slip out of my head within a couple of weeks, leaving only the image of a half-transformed slime fairy changeling flailing with his tentacles to plague my snail-phobic brain.

[By Book and Bone (Sally) · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the earlier Cosmic horror-like stories, The Novel of the Black Seal, explores some celtic mythology in the form of the Folk.

I enjoyed this short story, though the premise has been done to death since. You can really see where Lovecraft got some of his inspiration.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story taken from The Three Imposters.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es genial cuando de un libro de Lovecraft sacas otro libro para leer de un gran autor y éste te redirige otra vez a otra historia de Lovecraft ♾️

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the episodic novel of The Three Impostors," comments Lovecraft, "a work whose merit as a whole is somewhat marred by an imitation of the jaunty Stevenson manner, occur certain tales which perhaps represent the highwater mark of Machen's skill as a terror-weaver. Here we find in its most artistic form a favourite weird conception of the author's; the notion that beneath the mounds and rocks of the wild Welsh hills dwell subterraneously that squat primitive race whose vestiges gave rise to our common folk legends of fairies, elves, and the "little people," and whose acts are even now responsible for certain unexplained disappearances, and occasional substitutions of strange dark "changelings" for normal infants. This theme receives its finest treatment in the episode entitled The Novel Of The Black Seal; where a professor, having discovered a singular identity between certain characters scrawled on Welsh limestone rocks and those existing in a prehistoric black seal from Babylon, sets out on a course of discovery which leads him to unknown and terrible things."

Ooooo! Unknown and terrible things! And thus far it is being told by a governess, although it is too soon to tell if she is a Henry Jamesian governess or a reliable narrator. Excellent.

Listening to the reading from Supernatural Horror in Literature podcast.

FINAL
Thoroughly enjoyable!

[ѦѺ™ · Rating 5 out of 5]

the horror is so subtle and the mystery so thick that even when things are revealed at the end of the story, one can't help but ponder at the strangeness of it. very well-written, mesmerizing and an engrossing read.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur Machen’s “The Novel of the Black Seal” is a very strange and interesting story from his “The Three Imposters” which is horror and dark fantasy. It has Mr. Phillips talking to a distress girl on a bench. Miss Lally who had been telling him in the previous short story “Adventure of the Missing Brother”, the mention if Professor Gregg well know to Phillips in his scientific works and the professor’s death brought his interest that she knew him and claimed he is not dead. Miss Lally tells how she met the professor and his quest into the dark.

Story in short- Professor Gregg’s quest with the “black seal”.


❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert


I reviewed this short segment but not until I finished the whole “Three Imposters” and re-reading the prologue did I see this whole Miss Lally’s story a farce, to enlist sympathy of Phillips to accompany her to the house of horrors. Professor Greg was probably enticed by this woman to hus death. She probably does not have a brother and she is the same as Miss Leicester whose facial features the same. So when Phillips started to ask questions on his friend the Professor, she was gone.



I really don’t care for these dark novels but wanted to read “The Three Imposters” after reading “The Novel of White Powder” that mentions the man in spectacles.

Miss Lally is one of the young people searching for this man in the prologue of that novel. Her brother is missing but the strange thing by her brother on his walk near her seemed ghastly and that remind her of Professor Gregg who is supposed to be dead and known to Philllips. The story she tells him of the Professor finding her in London starving for her mother and father are dead, her brother not well off and not wanting to harm him she looked to die somewhere alone until the Professor offered her a job as a governess and secretary to his two motherless children. She helps him and when she sees the Black Seal but nothing more until she finds out a lot more when they take a house in the country so he could be by the young boy Jervse whose mother seemed to have him with an ungodly being and he has him around helping for watching. The young man during an attack spoke strange things related to darker things and the Black Seal. Professor Gregg is missing and a note given to Miss Lally tells of Jervse and his attack which the professor says if she receives this letter from the garden, he will not be back but his will is drawn. He went to be admitted to the dark meeting of the Black Seal but did not return and his things wrapped in the woods. The lawyer says he has drowned and that is the story they give the public. Phillips is really not believing conjecture and Miss Lally leaves before he can say more.

[Amy Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable work, which clearly influenced some of Lovecraft's oeuvre. It shares with Lovecraft the near-passive observer, the things man was not meant to wot of, and the oddly abrupt ending, but does them all much better than Lovecraft usually managed.

We have Miss Lally, about to let herself starve to death rather than tax her brother's thin resources, oddly rescued by Professor Gregg (who intimates something more than chance in their meeting, but this was never satisfactorily addressed), and initiated into the mysteries of the Black Seal. Partially, of course, because someone needs to survive to tell the story.

Be warned that there is some casual racism here and there. "Sallow" changelings, a mysterious child (implied to be the result of rape) has olive skin and dark eyes, "gipsies" with connections to the mystery. It's mostly the sort of in-built cultural assumption you might expect from a white Englishman of the time period, and no where near as bad as Lovecraft's, but it is a bit off-putting.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very much like the later stories of M.R. James or lovecraft. We had a stranger who got involved in mysterious and dangerous things. Unlike the later stories this was interesting as the stranger and narrator was a woman. Something the later fiction would tend to forget existed. However, it was a story that was wanting in a lot of ways. Nothing interesting happened with the woman. It was totally unclear WHY the man caught up in his mysteries confided in her. And the premise of it all was a bit strange, but not scary. The idea that faires and demons were the same thing just didn't have enough folklore behind it to make sense. And the danger all felt a bit vague. The style wasn't as great as one would expect from a late 19th century story. But despite all that I did enjoy it.

[PulpMonkey (Chompa) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this excerpt of Machen's Three Impostors (which I've listened to previously) after reading a comment about Lovecraft taking inspiration from it for Wilbur Whately in The Dunwich Horror.

I totally get it. Much like Deep One Hybrids in Shadow Over Innsmouth, these stories display characters that are not fully human. Each of these instances are very different, but I can see Machen's work inspiring the ideas for both Whately and the hybrids.

The short story itself is interesting and engaging, if at times a bit slow. I continue to be amazed at how accessible Machen is despite the story being written 130 years ago.

[Shabbeer Hassan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Weird" is a one-word summary I could give for this short story.

Machen's "Little People" have been rather highly influential to H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, among others in depicting their own "weird" supernatural worlds. The tale of the "Little People" in Machen's stories, rests on the protagonist trying to explain away fables and folktales as distorted truths. Its these distorted truths bring out the idea that amongst the real and tangible lies the supernatural. In this case, the implication that "fairies" were actually an aboriginal race in Britain.

My Rating - 3.5/5

[Ernesto I. Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story

Pretty good scenario and story, and interesting reinvention of the fair folk and maybe demons. Of course, one must consider when was it written. Today some of its ideas won't be new and the scenario would be tame, and yet it has an interesting development of the scenario and atmosphere.

[Kostas]

Yeah no, I cannot remember this book for the life of me. Maybe this means it was bad, maybe it means it had a bad translation, maybe I was not in the right mood for it, who can remember nearly 30 years ago. I definitely want to read Machen again, in English this time, but for the time being I am not gonna rate this one either.

[Neal Fandek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haven't read any Machen in years -- he's very good. He leads you into the story with a very sympathetic heroine, establishes a horrible mystery but touches lightly on it, then reveals all in the end. Really masterful. Almost Lovecraftian in its depiction of hidden, ancient races with terrible powers. The mystery of the bust in particular is quite well handled.

[Rowina Vargas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siendo un fragmento de la novela Los tres impostores, la novela Adel sello negro no deja de ser una historia magnífica, que se sostiene sola por su magnífica narrativa y excelente equilibrio entre la fantasía y el terror.

[Mohammad Alamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

💕💕💕

[Genrard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too long and the payoff wasn't worth it. Lovecraftian in that "its so scary I can't even describe it, just believe me bro."

[nooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

You definitely should read this if you like Lovecraft.