What do you think?
Rate this book
Ultimate Collection: The Greatest Occult & Supernatural Classics in One Volume
Musaicum Press presents to you an Arthur Machen collection, which has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. 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 has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror (Stephen King has called it "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language"). Historian of fantastic literature Brian Stableford has suggested that Machen "was the first writer of authentically modern horror stories, and his best works must still be reckoned among the finest products of the genre". Table of The Three Impostors The Hill of Dreams The A Mystery The Secret Glory Short Stories and A Fragment of Life The White People The Great God Pan The Inmost Light The Shining Pyramid The Red Hand The Bowmen The Soldiers' Rest The Monstrance The Dazzling Light The Bowmen And Other Noble Ghosts The Marriage of Panurge Psychology The Rose Garden The Ceremony The Happy Children The Great Return A New Christmas Carol Out of the Earth Hieroglyphics The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798 Far Off Things Arthur A Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin (With Two Uncollected Poems by Arthur Machen)
5246 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 21, 2017
51 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Machen
1,121 books1,011 followersArthur 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 25, 2020
The great Arthur Machen, the worlds first modern horror writer, is sadly and strangely underrated and largely forgotten like a precious hidden gem. His vivid concepts inspired many who continue to over-shadow him today , Daphne Du Maurier and of course Lovecraft to name but two writers that arguably took it to the point of plagiarism.
This kindle edition is titled ‘The Ultimate Collection’ and includes short stories, novellas, essays and a memoir. It’s a bit like an anthology containing B sides and demos, warts and all, but the first work I discovered and had me sold on Machen, The Islington Mystery is inexplicably omitted.
The ingenious peaks of the collection for me are The Three Imposters, The Great God Pan, A Fragment of Life, The Inmost Light and The Hill of Dreams, where he autobiographically expresses the psychological privations of an innocent abroad, full of artistic hopes and dreams in the isolation of a squalid London bedsit.
The recurring themes are of arcane forces at work in amongst the dread and wonders of modern London (1900-1918), juxtaposed with Machen’s enduring love of his spiritual homeland; the rolling hills and water pools of Gwent and Monmouthshire in South Wales.
The lesser known World War One curios of The Terror and the Angels of the Mons also hold some interest, although they read for me, as propaganda time capsules written to preserve moral and aggression in the face of the existential threat of Imperial Germany.
As a fan I’ve given this five stars despite the repetition of prose being exposed and the feeling that a stronger edit would have improved some of his lesser known works. Overall, this imperfection is part of Machen’s charm, like the crackle and pop of an old vinyl record. I’m so glad I discovered him by chance and look forward to getting my hands on the ‘real books’ courtesy of the eponymously named Three Imposters publishing house dedicated to reproducing and raising the profile of Arthur Machen’s wonderful work in the 21st Century.
This kindle edition is titled ‘The Ultimate Collection’ and includes short stories, novellas, essays and a memoir. It’s a bit like an anthology containing B sides and demos, warts and all, but the first work I discovered and had me sold on Machen, The Islington Mystery is inexplicably omitted.
The ingenious peaks of the collection for me are The Three Imposters, The Great God Pan, A Fragment of Life, The Inmost Light and The Hill of Dreams, where he autobiographically expresses the psychological privations of an innocent abroad, full of artistic hopes and dreams in the isolation of a squalid London bedsit.
The recurring themes are of arcane forces at work in amongst the dread and wonders of modern London (1900-1918), juxtaposed with Machen’s enduring love of his spiritual homeland; the rolling hills and water pools of Gwent and Monmouthshire in South Wales.
The lesser known World War One curios of The Terror and the Angels of the Mons also hold some interest, although they read for me, as propaganda time capsules written to preserve moral and aggression in the face of the existential threat of Imperial Germany.
As a fan I’ve given this five stars despite the repetition of prose being exposed and the feeling that a stronger edit would have improved some of his lesser known works. Overall, this imperfection is part of Machen’s charm, like the crackle and pop of an old vinyl record. I’m so glad I discovered him by chance and look forward to getting my hands on the ‘real books’ courtesy of the eponymously named Three Imposters publishing house dedicated to reproducing and raising the profile of Arthur Machen’s wonderful work in the 21st Century.
Displaying 1 of 1 review