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The Prospero Machine: And Other Stories
The Prospero Machine and Other Stories collects seven long narratives about legends and mysterious landscape in Britain. The title story depicts the strange incidents surrounding a fortune-telling machine at a seaside resort out of season, while other tales reveal sorcery and sanctity in the Malvern Hills, among Roman ruins on the Cumbrian coast and at a Templar preceptory in Lincolnshire.
A seasonal ceremonial at England’s third university seems to have occult significance, a young curator at a museum discovers the key to an ancient ritual, while even the historic curiosities of a town’s municipal boundaries prove to have a deep esoteric significance. All of the pieces have a highly evocative setting and a keen interest in historical episodes and the continuing resonance of myths and lore. The stories have previously appeared in limited edition volumes but are collected here for the first time.
'Kraken Tide', 'Seek for the Pomegranate', 'Armed for a Day of Glory', 'The Old Wards', 'Masque and Anti-Masque', 'The Prospero Machine', 'Roman Masks'. Acknowledgements.
A seasonal ceremonial at England’s third university seems to have occult significance, a young curator at a museum discovers the key to an ancient ritual, while even the historic curiosities of a town’s municipal boundaries prove to have a deep esoteric significance. All of the pieces have a highly evocative setting and a keen interest in historical episodes and the continuing resonance of myths and lore. The stories have previously appeared in limited edition volumes but are collected here for the first time.
'Kraken Tide', 'Seek for the Pomegranate', 'Armed for a Day of Glory', 'The Old Wards', 'Masque and Anti-Masque', 'The Prospero Machine', 'Roman Masks'. Acknowledgements.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 5, 2026
About the author
Mark Valentine
272 books145 followersMark Valentine is an English author, biographer and editor.
Valentine’s short stories have been published by a number of small presses and in anthologies since the 1980s, and the exploits of his series character, "The Connoisseur", an occult detective, were published as The Collected Connoisseur in 2010.
As a biographer, Valentine has published a life of Arthur Machen in 1985 (Seren Press), and a study of Sarban, Time, A Falconer (Tartarus Press), is published in 2010. He has also written numerous articles for the Book and Magazine Collector magazine, and introductions for various books, including editions of work by Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, J. Meade Falkner and others.
Valentine also edits Wormwood (Tartarus Press), a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural and decadent literature, and has also edited anthologies, including The Werewolf Pack (Wordsworth, 2008) and The Black Veil (Wordsworth, 2008).
Valentine’s short stories have been published by a number of small presses and in anthologies since the 1980s, and the exploits of his series character, "The Connoisseur", an occult detective, were published as The Collected Connoisseur in 2010.
As a biographer, Valentine has published a life of Arthur Machen in 1985 (Seren Press), and a study of Sarban, Time, A Falconer (Tartarus Press), is published in 2010. He has also written numerous articles for the Book and Magazine Collector magazine, and introductions for various books, including editions of work by Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, J. Meade Falkner and others.
Valentine also edits Wormwood (Tartarus Press), a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural and decadent literature, and has also edited anthologies, including The Werewolf Pack (Wordsworth, 2008) and The Black Veil (Wordsworth, 2008).
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November 1, 2026
This is the Valentine I've been waiting for - all of his Charles Williams tributes collected in one volume. In the absence of a new Williams novel, this will do very nicely. One of my top reads of the year.
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