Arthur Machen

Author profile

born

in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Wales, The United Kingdom

March 03, 1863

died

December 15, 1947

gender

male

genre

Weird Fiction, Horror

About this author

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Arthur 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 Ele...more Arthur 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.
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Arthur Machen's Books

Average rating: 3.96 · 5,904 ratings · 544 reviews · 203 distinct works · Similar authors

	The Great God Pan 3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 avg rating — 1,665 ratings — published 1894 — 55 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Three Impostors and Other Stories by Arthur Machen, S.T. Joshi (Introduction) 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 406 ratings — published 2001 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The White People and Other Stories by Arthur Machen, S.T. Joshi (Editor) 4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 avg rating — 211 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hill of Dreams 3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 avg rating — 210 ratings — published 1907 — 34 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The White People 3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 avg rating — 169 ratings — published 1904 — 6 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen, S.T. Joshi (Editor), Guillermo del Toro (Foreword) 3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 avg rating — 120 ratings — published 2004 — 4 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Three Impostors 4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 avg rating — 142 ratings — published 1895 — 18 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams 3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 avg rating — 112 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tales of Horror & the Supernatural 4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 1948 — 4 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Terror 3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 avg rating — 110 ratings — published 1917 — 16 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Arthur Machen…

Series by Arthur Machen

The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen (3 books)
by Arthur Machen, S.T. Joshi (Editor)
4.085365853658536 of 5 stars 4.09 avg rating — 656 ratings

Quotes by Arthur Machen

“I dream in fire but work in clay.”
― Arthur Machen

tags: creativity

20 people liked it

“silence is not weakness and decency is not pride”
― Arthur Machen

tags: character, strength

19 people liked it

“We both wondered whether these contradictions that one can't avoid if one begins to think of time and space may not really be proofs that the whole of life is a dream, and the moon and stars bits of nightmare.”
― Arthur Machen, The Terror

tags: dream, horror, moon, reality, space, stars, time

12 people liked it

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Arthur Machen

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Series by Arthur Machen

Quotes by Arthur Machen

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Topics Mentioning This Author

combine editions
Arthur Machen's Books