Discover new books on Goodreads

See if your friends have read any of Arthur Machen's books

Arthur Machen’s Followers (1,073)

Arthur Machen

Born

in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Wales

March 03, 1863

Died

December 15, 1947

Genre

Fantasy, Horror, Weird Fiction

Influences

Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, François Rab ...more

edit data

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 Eleus 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.
...more

Combine Editions
Arthur Machen’s books

Average rating: 3.8 · 52,782 ratings · 5,803 reviews · 1,192 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Great God Pan 3.66 avg rating — 17,920 ratings — published 1890 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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, Guillermo del Toro (Foreword), S.T. Joshi (Editor) 3.85 avg rating — 4,834 ratings — published 1904 — 664 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 Other Horror Stories by Arthur Machen, Aaron Worth (Editor) 3.75 avg rating — 2,238 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 (The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen #1) by Arthur Machen, S.T. Joshi (Introduction) 4.06 avg rating — 1,533 ratings — published 2001 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 3.84 avg rating — 1,557 ratings — published 1895 — 219 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 Hill of Dreams 3.84 avg rating — 1,451 ratings — published 1907 — 509 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 3.66 avg rating — 1,069 ratings — published 1917 — 282 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 Shining Pyramid 3.57 avg rating — 674 ratings — published 1895 — 89 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 House of Souls 3.87 avg rating — 592 ratings — published 1906 — 176 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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 Inmost Light 3.53 avg rating — 475 ratings — published 1894 — 80 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. 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)

3.90 avg rating — 6,483 ratings

Collected Fiction (3 books)
by

Arthur Machen,

S.T. Joshi (Editor)

4.06 avg rating — 36 ratings

Related News

Readers’ Most Anticipated Books of 2025

A nice thing about the end of one year is that it’s traditionally followed by another year, which means 12 more months of new books to...

Polls

November 2024 Short Story/Novella Poll

Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway

40 votes, 20.4%

A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger

38 votes, 19.4%

The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell

33 votes, 16.8%

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

28 votes, 14.3%

Anthem by Ayn Rand

23 votes, 11.7%

The Swineherd by Hans Christian Andersen

20 votes, 10.2%

The Town Poor by Sarah Orne Jewett

14 votes, 7.1%

196 total votes

comments and details

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Fantasy Book Club: Nominations now open for March book	97	353	Jan 17, 2012 08:12AM
You'll love this ...: Debra T's Rainbow's Pot of Gold	409	93	Jan 04, 2013 02:26AM
The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2012-2013: Completed Tasks - DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2485	871	Feb 28, 2013 09:01PM
The Patrick Hamil...: Arthur Machen	2	12	Aug 29, 2013 07:34AM
Reading with Style: Summer 2013 RwS Completed Tasks - Summer 2013	648	130	Aug 31, 2013 09:06PM

More…