Essential Machen

Tales of Horror and the Supernatural
by Arthur Machen

http://www.librarything.com/work/115597

the best single vol. of Machen, any other favorites?

Tales of Horror and the Supernatural doesn't include the episodic novel The Three Impostors (although it includes two excerpts as stand-alone stories.

Ritual and other stories includes writings from Machen's whole career, including the very short pieces (prose-poems rather than stories) from Ornaments in Jade are probably the best fit with the remit of this group (touchstones not working for me).

The mystical novella A Fragment of Life was included in last year's Penguin collection edited by S. T. Joshi.

The Secret of the Sangraal & Other Writings is mainly a collection of occasional piece by Machen wearing his journalist hat. Some of it is fairly small-c conservative, some of it surprising in its attitude (the past is a foreign country, after all.) There's enough of reminiscence of the 1890s, and strange London lore, to make this collection worth reading. The title essay is a long piece setting out Machen's theories on the Holy Grail and its connection to the early British church.

"The White People" is in The Colour of Space cosmic horror anthology. Is that story about Tea Party zombies?

> 3

As Roy Walker used to say when he hosted Catchphrase - "It's good; but it's not right."

Interesting touchstone too!

> 1,2

If I recall, Ritual is Tartartus Press's companion volume to their reprint of Tales of Horror and the Supernatural, the contents of which I believe they kept as Knopf issued it in 1949 (or was it'48?). The two taken together cover all of Machen's shorter-than-novel-length fiction.

> 5

Yes, with the caveat that the Tartarus Press Ritual grew bigger as it went through reprints/further editions. Paying over the odds for an earlier edition on the 2nd-hand market could therefore mean missing out on some content.

They also published A Fragment of Life, The Secret Glory and The Green Round as separate volumes (the Arkham Press Green Round, or even the original Ernest Benn edition, are much easier to get hold of. But, it is reckoned to be a minor work.).

I rather enjoyed The Green Round -- I think it's underrated. It's no Fragment of Life (one of my fave rave Machens) but it has that typically Machenistic air of indeterminacy... we're not quite sure what happened, and then it sort of wanders off, like life or knowledge...

I've been waiting for my uncle Rockefellr to die ( ;D ) so I can get the latest Ritual, and Sangraal, and even Dreads n Drolls. A few years ago they said they were soon to reissue their edition of Secret Glory with the missing chapters added, but so far no joy...

I can't recommend this society highly enough. The journal Faunus is well written and exquisitely presented in a small cloth bound hardback format. There is some really amazing writing on Machen here as well as the occasional reprint of a rare volume.
Mark Valentine and company are involved so the quality is extremely high!

http://www.arthurmachen.org.uk/

Machen essay prize announced:

http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2019/06/faunus-arthur-machen-essay-prizes.html?...