“Speak of the Devil and his
horns will appear.” I had not really expected this book to be here until at
least Friday, so I was pretty surprised when it showed up today, almost as if
my mention of it yesterday had summoned it early. I only hope that these short
stories are more appealing than his novel The Great God Pan, which I once
had on a time but resold during one of my occasional purges. Well, we shall
see. There are one or two famous short stories, anyway.
“Here we have a collection
of short and long stories by British author Arthur Machen (1863 – 1947). Editor
S. T. Joshi gives us a somewhat eccentric selection of tales, but a number of
good ones are included. The first tale, "The Inmost Light," has a
doctor using magic to remove his wife's soul, with predictable consequences.
"The Novel of the Black Seal" is a tale that would delight Lovecraft,
and did. "The Novel of the White Powder" improves on a famous horror
tale by Poe... the ending is really something! "The Red Hand" is a
detective story with a big payoff in terror at its end. "The White
People" is probably Machen's most famous story... a young girl is
introduced to a hidden world by her nanny, and once she has seen that secret
world in full, there is no place for her in our world. "A Fragment of
Life" should probably not have been included in the collection... it is
interminably long, and has no real payoff at the end. A man earning a
conventional living in a conventional job feels increasing dissatisfaction, and
on impulse digs into a trunk of family papers in his attic, discovering that
his family is one of the oldest in Britain, going back continuously to days
long before the Roman occupation. It's not really a weird tale in any sense.
"The Bowmen" is a famous story because it unintentionally triggered a
preposterous legend, taken very seriously in the early days of WW 1. "The
Soldier's Rest" is another very slight and predictable intrusion of the
supernatural into WW 1. "The Great Return" has an ancient religion
(in which Machen himself was a firm believer) making an inexplicable comeback
in a small British village. "Out of the Earth" has pop-up appearances
of evil prehistoric "little people" (who appear in many of Machen's
stories, not always fully on-stage) ruining vacations for solid British
citizens. Finally, another long story, "The Terror," has a horrifying
and full-scale assault on humanity dangerously and largely concealed by wartime
security. Again it is a detective story of sorts, and you are unlikely to guess
the full explanation for the epidemic of mass murders until it is finally
revealed. This story reaches several peaks of genuine pure fright. Taken all in
all, this is a pretty good introduction to Machen's fiction. An introduction by
Joshi gives details of Machen's life and career.” – Rory Coker, Amazon Reviewer.
"The Ecstasy of St.
Arthur," Foreword by Guillermo del Toro
Introduction by S. T. Joshi
The Inmost Light
Novel of the Black Seal
Novel of the White Powder
The Red Hand
The White People
A Fragment of Life
The Bowman
The Soldier's Rest
The Great Return
Out of the Earth
The Terror
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