Bøker av Arthur Machen

The Great God Pan is a horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write The Great God Pan by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine The Whirlwind in 1890. Machen later extended The Great God Pan and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of unearthly transformations before dying and she is revealed to be a supernatural entity. On publication, it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its implied sexual content, and the novella hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Beginning in the 1920s, Machen's work was critically re-evaluated and The Great God Pan has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Literary critics have noted the influence of other nineteenth-century authors on The Great God Pan and offered differing opinions on whether or not it can be considered an example of Gothic fiction or science fiction. The novella has influenced the work of horror writers such as Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, and has been adapted for the stage twice. A pair of parodies of Pan were published in 1895 - Arthur Rickett's "A Yellow Creeper" and Arthur Sykes's "The Great Pan-Demon". Both suggest that Machen is an author of "limited imagination," with the latter depicting him as a mad scientist unleashing degenerate literature on an unsuspecting public. The Great God Pan was brought to the stage in 2008 by the WildClaw Theatre Company in Chicago. It was adapted and directed by WildClaw artistic director Charley Sherman. The novella Helen's Story (2013) by Rosanne Rabinowitz retells the story of The Great God Pan from Helen Vaughan's point of view. Helen's Story was written from a feminist perspective and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. The Great God Pan was adapted into a chamber opera by composer Ross Crean. Unusually for a composer, Crean wrote the opera's libretto himself. A recording of the work was released in 2017. The production saw its world premiere by Chicago Fringe Opera in 2018. According to the Chicago Tribune's John von Rhein, Chicago Fringe Opera's staging of The Great God Pan portrays Helen Vaughan as both a symbol of gender equality and an evil femme fatale. (wikipedia.org)

LARGE PRINT EDITION. Invited by his friend to witness an experimental procedure, Clarke watches with interest and horror as the surgeon opens his young patient¿s mind to grant her a vision of the spirit realm. Years later, a nearby town is traumatized by the strange disappearance of several children, prompting Clarke to investigate. The Great God Pan is a novella by Arthur Machen.

The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations is an episodic horror novel by British writer Arthur Machen, first published in 1895 in The Bodley Head's Keynote Series. It was revived in paperback by Ballantine Books as the forty-eighth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1972.The novel comprises several weird tales and culminates in a final denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three impostors of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London-relating the aforementioned weird tales in the process-as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: "the young man with spectacles". (wikipedia.org)

The Great God Pan and 'The White People' are classics of the horror genre, while The Inmost Light is more conventional, but still a damn good piece. A Fragment of Life, the only non-horror tale in the collection, has its tedious sections, but this proves to be intentional as a rendering of the ephemera of life drowning out the beauty.Machen's career, though rarely less than entertaining, eventually descended into lesser material going over the same ideas, but The House of Souls is one of his essential books along with The Hill of Dreams, Ornaments in Jade and The Three Impostors. Uniquely powerful literature from a veritable visionary. (Jim Smith)

Fabulous piece of writing. It is really quite astounding that Machen is largely forgotten as a writer. In The Secret Glory, I particularly loved Machen's satirical social comments about the class system, Christian hypocrisy and the sadistic puritanism of English Public Schools. This isn't always an easy book to read but it is very rewarding, and after reading, like the best literary works, carves out a place for itself in one's psyche. (M.J. Johnson)

Most essential Machen work is from the 1890s, but The Terror is one of his most developed horror tales from his later career. This often waffling novella is meandering and less focused than his dark folk masterpieces The Hill of Dreams, The Great God Pan, Novel of the Black Seal and The White People, but also gleefully manic and quite inspired in parts, developing an atmosphere of magical mystery and dread around the countryside and featuring moments of terror, particularly the harrowing final siege diary, which is worthy of Machen at his best as a horror writer. (Jim Smith)

The Great God Pan is a horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write The Great God Pan by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine The Whirlwind in 1890. Machen later extended The Great God Pan and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of supernatural transformations before dying and she is revealed to be the child of Mary and the god Pan.On publication, it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its implied sexual content, and the novella hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Beginning in the 1920s, Machen's work was critically re-evaluated and The Great God Pan has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Literary critics have noted the influence of other nineteenth-century authors on The Great God Pan and offered differing opinions on whether or not it can be considered an example of Gothic fiction or science fiction. The novella has influenced the work of horror writers such as Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, and has been adapted for the stage twice. (wikipedia.org)

The Hill of Dreams is a semi-autobiographical novel by the Welsh writer Arthur Machen.The novel recounts the life of a young man, Lucian Taylor, focusing on his dreamy childhood in rural Wales, in a town based on Caerleon. The Hill of Dreams of the title is an old Roman fort where Lucian has strange sensual visions, including ones of the town in the time of Roman Britain. Later, the novel describes Lucian's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art and history.The Hill of Dreams was little noticed on its publication in 1907 save in a glowing review by Alfred Douglas. It was actually written between 1895 and 1897 and has elements of the style of the decadent and aesthetic movement of the period, seen through Machen's own mystical preoccupations. (wikipedia.org)

Fascinating mystical and artistic creed and a good-natured marvel of circumlocution. Practically everything Machen wrote in the 1890s had the touch of genius, and this even applies to his non-fiction, though this is actually presented as a fictional account from Machen's familiar of imagination.Here Machen vaguely details how he separates high literature from mere reading material, and whilst such an essay may sound haughty and pretentious, it makes more sense when you realise he isn't making a critical separation based on quality, but is espousing his hearty belief that art should exist to portray those unknown spheres of the infinite and ourselves.I didn't agree with all of Machen's conclusions, but such rambling rants as these were a big influence in shaping my own views on art, and it remains a criminally underlooked book. Buy this if you loved Machen's classic dark fiction of that decade (The Great God Pan, The Three Impostors, The White People and The Hill of Dreams), but perhaps weren't able to articulate why you felt their beckoning mysteries so deeply. (Jim Smith)

A beautiful book by one of the least known writers of horror/supernatural fiction. It's the first volume of his autobiography, and by far far the best of the three. It is an amazing piece of writing not only for the things he describes, but also (and most of all) for how he describes them, with a style which is far from the one he used in his fiction. (Andrea Russo)

"Explosion at Munition Works in the Northern District: Many Fatalities."The working man told about it, and added some dreadful details. Corpses so terribly maimed that coffins had been kept covered; faces mutilated as if by some gnawing animal. . . . we took a tram to the location of the disaster; a raw and hideous shed with a walled yard about it, and a shut gate. The roof was quite undamaged -- this had had been a strange accident. There had been an explosion of sufficient violence to kill work-people in the building, but the building itself showed no wounds or scars.

The Hill of Dreams is a semi-autobiographical novel by the Welsh writer Arthur Machen.The novel recounts the life of a young man, Lucian Taylor, focusing on his dreamy childhood in rural Wales, in a town based on Caerleon. The Hill of Dreams of the title is an old Roman fort where Lucian has strange sensual visions, including ones of the town in the time of Roman Britain. Later, the novel describes Lucian's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art and history.The Hill of Dreams was little noticed on its publication in 1907 save in a glowing review by Alfred Douglas. It was actually written between 1895 and 1897 and has elements of the style of the decadent and aesthetic movement of the period, seen through Machen's own mystical preoccupations. (wikipedia.org)