Extollager
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Darkly Bright is a website and publisher with a strong emphasis on Arthur Machen's writings, notably works that have not been reprinted since their original appearance or that are likely to be unfamiliar. Site manager Christopher Tompkins publishes articles about Machen occasionally, as well. The press also publishes poetry and fiction by authors who seem to Tompkins to be kindred spirits.
I've been reading Mist and Mystery and finding it to be more interesting than I might have expected. After all, Machen mined his journalism for several books, such as Dog and Duck, The Shining Pyramid, and Notes and Queries. But for me, as someone whose liking for Machen is almost coextensive with my life as a reader of books -- I have been reading him for over 50 years -- there's much in this miscellany than I'm enjoying. I intend to post notes on this thread about that reading. I should say -- if anyone seeing this is a Machen fan, you might not want to wait long to order a copy, as DB editions seem to go out of print fairly quickly. The book compiles pieces from nearly 20 years of T. P.'s Weekly.
The one piece that, so far, I'm sure I have read, will be one that most Machen fans know already, "Out of the Earth," one of Machen's narratives about the malign Little People. Tompkins reprints it in its original form, with numbered section divisions and (I gather) some word changes. There's also an illustration which is more horrible when you look at it closely; at first you just get an impression of some scruffy-looking kids.
It's many years ago since I had a library copy of Machen's Selected Letters in hand, and my memory is that it was disappointing. I would have liked more about Machen's reading, for example. There's plenty of that here in this book. It's pleasing to read Machen's (brief) praise for Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, in an illustrated edition from Chatto and Windus. He praises Blackwood's "story of the men on the island amongst the whispering mysterious voices of the willow [bushes]*," which he would place "in the very first rank of tales of terror." It's good to know also that Machen regarded The Turn of the Screw as "one of the very best horror stories ever written." Henry James was alive when that was written.
By the way, Tompkins published here
an intriguing critique of Blackwood by Machen.
Mist and Mystery bears witness again to the way Dickens's novels came so readily to Machen's mind that he mentions him repeatedly -- and he could trust that his readers knew the significance of an allusion to Gradgrind, for example. Here is reprinted "Poe the Enchanter: A Study in Aesthetics," in which he praises a study by Arthur Ransome (author of Swallows and Amazons, etc.). Machen particularly likes this sentence of Ransome's on Poe: "My admiration was always for something round the corner or over the hill."
*The book has a misprint, "lushes."
Mist and Mystery
015 Mist and Mystery: Recovered Stories and Essays by Arthur Machen “And here, though we are initiated in the mysteries, we are assuredly not in the mists.” LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION:Available Now…
darklybrightpress.com
I've been reading Mist and Mystery and finding it to be more interesting than I might have expected. After all, Machen mined his journalism for several books, such as Dog and Duck, The Shining Pyramid, and Notes and Queries. But for me, as someone whose liking for Machen is almost coextensive with my life as a reader of books -- I have been reading him for over 50 years -- there's much in this miscellany than I'm enjoying. I intend to post notes on this thread about that reading. I should say -- if anyone seeing this is a Machen fan, you might not want to wait long to order a copy, as DB editions seem to go out of print fairly quickly. The book compiles pieces from nearly 20 years of T. P.'s Weekly.
The one piece that, so far, I'm sure I have read, will be one that most Machen fans know already, "Out of the Earth," one of Machen's narratives about the malign Little People. Tompkins reprints it in its original form, with numbered section divisions and (I gather) some word changes. There's also an illustration which is more horrible when you look at it closely; at first you just get an impression of some scruffy-looking kids.
It's many years ago since I had a library copy of Machen's Selected Letters in hand, and my memory is that it was disappointing. I would have liked more about Machen's reading, for example. There's plenty of that here in this book. It's pleasing to read Machen's (brief) praise for Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, in an illustrated edition from Chatto and Windus. He praises Blackwood's "story of the men on the island amongst the whispering mysterious voices of the willow [bushes]*," which he would place "in the very first rank of tales of terror." It's good to know also that Machen regarded The Turn of the Screw as "one of the very best horror stories ever written." Henry James was alive when that was written.
By the way, Tompkins published here
Machen on Blackwood
Introduction Arthur Machen reported on a broad array of topics for the Evening News, but he naturally seemed the wise choice to handle reviews of recently published literature. He fulfilled this fu…
darklybrightpress.com
an intriguing critique of Blackwood by Machen.
Mist and Mystery bears witness again to the way Dickens's novels came so readily to Machen's mind that he mentions him repeatedly -- and he could trust that his readers knew the significance of an allusion to Gradgrind, for example. Here is reprinted "Poe the Enchanter: A Study in Aesthetics," in which he praises a study by Arthur Ransome (author of Swallows and Amazons, etc.). Machen particularly likes this sentence of Ransome's on Poe: "My admiration was always for something round the corner or over the hill."
*The book has a misprint, "lushes."