Won this through Early Reviewers. I like the Mint Editions and that they reprint old out of print literature. They are nice well built hard cover copies.
I had never heard of Arthur Machen before I requested this book. Apparently he was sort of a Welsh H. P. Lovecraft. His stories of which there are several in this collection, both novellas and short stories, were to me fairly dense and hard to get through. I had a hard time finishing this book, as Machen never met an adjective he didn't like. I normally like very descriptive stories but he tends to lay it on pretty thick and the mysticism is also laid on very thick. I'm sure readers of the time period may have gotten some of the classical references that he uses but I'm afraid they are pretty lost on today's generation of readers. These are more weird tales than horrific in my opinion. ( )

Mint Editions is a print-on-demand imprint that sells hardcovers of classic (i.e., out-of-copyright) literature. They offered a number of recent releases through LibraryThing's EarlyReviewer program last fall, and I requested collections of late-nineteenth-century speculative fiction by H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, and George S. Schuyler. The one I ended up winning was by Arthur Machen (1863-1947), an early horror writer cited as an influence on Lovecraft.

The book is visually attractive on the outside, but as a high-quality reprint edition, has little to offer. There is no critical or contextual material bar a half-page note about the author; the copyright page indicates the original publication of the materials spans 1894 to 1921, but the book does not give specific dates for specific texts. The table of contents is laid out kind of weird; I would think the titles of stories from collections would somehow be set off from the titles of the collections. These may seem like petty complaints, but these are all stories I can read for free on Project Gutenberg, whereas this edition goes for $26 on Amazon. If you are going to charge that much, I need more than a nice piece of stock art on the cover; Penguin Classics sells a paperback of some Machen stories for $18, and though I haven't seen it, it comes with a foreword, a critical introduction, and notes by a prominent scholar. Mint needs to offer more than it is offering to compete with that. My copy was free... but yours won't be.

As for the stories themselves, they are largely fine. Despite the fact that I am a Victorianist who works on science fiction and fantasy, Victorian horror is kind of hit-and-miss for me. I think Dracula, for example, really holds up. On the other hand, I have found Le Fanu's work pretty spotty. I can see why other people might enjoy it, but I found Machen toward the same end of the spectrum as Le Fanu's weaker work. Stories like "The Great God Pan" are very much a slow burn that communicate horror through implication... so much implication that I finished "The Great God Pan" not quite sure what its villainess had actually done except maybe have extramarital sex. "The Hill of Dreams" started well, with a distinctive narrator and some lush descriptions... but that's basically all one gets for over a hundred rambling pages. It felt to me like nothing actually happened, and I eventually lost interest.

I found "The Shining Pyramid" a bit more successful: a story with creepy signs that defy interpretation, like something out of Poe. "The Terror" was interesting to me, though I don't know if it would be to other people. I've spent some time researching pre–Great War future war fiction, the kind of stuff by George Griffith where people are worried about invading Europeans with dastardly weapons, and I felt like Machen was trying to merge that kind of story with his own sensibilities as a writer. The problem was that it was pretty boring.

There are people who swear up and down by Machen. I am sympathetic to them: I enjoy reading a lot of early speculative fiction. But this sampler of Machen's entirely failed to interest me as a source of pleasure reading or as a scholar of the period.

Having read several of Machen's short stories, I'd long wanted to read further and this LTER offering proved opportune. Included in this selection are works I'd specifically been seeking out, alongside others I'd not heard even the title.

I'd received 2 other Mint edition collections, both softcover and relatively slim volumes, predisposing me to anticipate the same for this edition. Not so: this hardback edition is 400+ pages in a sturdy, handsome edition, though without much editorial material (introduction, commentary, annotation). So far as I've been able to make out, this selection is unique to Mint's edition, rather than a facsimile or reprint of another collection. Pleased to keep on my shelves.

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THE GREAT GOD PAN (1890-91 as 2 disconnected short stories, 1894 novella)
The origin of Helen Vaughan, and on one hand described as an obstacle to Machen's career for its implicit sexuality and depravity, and on the other as "selling well" for the same reasons.

THE INMOST LIGHT (1894, long-ish short story, published with PAN)
Set in London, the same Dyson as featured in The Three Imposters?

THE SHINING PYRAMID (1895 or 1923, short story or novelette)
First published in a serial, later reprinted as title story of a collection including "Out of the Earth" and other "essays" (I suspect some are as near short stories as they are essays). A curious investigation into mysterious objects left on a rural estate.

THE HILL OF DREAMS (1907, novel)
Written much earlier than when published, Wikipedia suggests 1895-97: while reading it felt as though it were autobiographical but I'm not sufficiently familiar with Machen's life story to affirm. Online sources make such claims but as an easy statement to make or repeat from others, I'm reserving judgment. This faery weird tale meanders and the climax is all the more surprising for it.

THE WHITE PEOPLE (1904, short story)
Seminal horror fiction, astounding prose especially in the middle section ("The Green Book"). Curious also for its link to the (historically inaccurate) myth of Brutus as founder of Britain, and to the Caerdroia (Caerdroea, Caer Droea), Welsh turf mazes.

THE TERROR (1917, short novel)
Regular reference to Machen's "The Bowmen" (Angel of Mons) and itself a war period piece, both describing and commenting upon WWI. That's not the Terror, though.

OUT OF THE EARTH (1923, short story)
Another "war period" piece akin to "The Terror", and again the menace is not the war itself.

ORNAMENTS IN JADE (1924, prose poems)
A vague sense they are related in the way a story cycle would be, not in the sense of recurring characters. These short pieces are pleasingly oblique, both rational and mystical. ( )

I had never read Machen before requesting this book, having only heard of him as a literary influence on Lovecraft and other horror writers. The stories collected here tend to the slow building, indescribable otherworldly type horror; they are a bit too slow for my taste, but fans of late 19th-early 20th century horror will find this collection a treat.

I never heard of this writer before winning the book on the Early Reviewers Giveaway program. I requested it because he was from Wales. I'm happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised at how good a writer he is. I'm genuinely surprised that he's not better known. Machen's stories are tight, well-written, spooky tales. He paints a very realistic portrait of some very unrealistic situations. He quickly draws you into the story and you become invested in what the protagonist does. Overall, I can't recommend these stories enough. The book itself is a beautiful, easily read edition with a unique feel to the cover. I'm interested in owning more titles in this series.