Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Arthur Machen
"Tales of Horror and the Supernatural" is a collection of significant works by Welsh author Arthur Machen, encompassing key stories and short novels that span over four decades of his writing. Central to Machen's fiction is the exploration of a universe that exists beyond the mundane, suggesting both horrifying and beautiful spiritual realms. His notable works include "The Great God Pan," which involves a doctor’s unsettling experiment leading to terrifying revelations, and "The Terror," which reflects on themes of moral responsibility during World War I. Machen's stories, such as "The Novel of the Black Seal" and "The White People," delve into the existence of prehistoric beings, often referred to as Little People, who are tied to supernatural experiences. His narratives are marked by a blend of horror and ecstasy, inviting readers to confront the unknown. Critics have praised "The White People" as possibly the finest supernatural tale, highlighting Machen's unique narrative style and thematic depth. Additionally, Machen's later works, like "N," encapsulate his ongoing exploration of fear and beauty in both everyday life and extraordinary circumstances. This collection serves as a cornerstone for those interested in early 20th-century horror and the supernatural.
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Tales of Horror and the Supernatural
First published: 1948
Type of work: Collected works
Type of plot: Fantasy—magical world
Time of work: Near the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century
Locale: Great Britain, often London and Wales
The Plot
Tales of Horror and the Supernatural collects much of Welsh author Arthur Machen’s most important fiction. Besides the short novels The Great God Pan (1894) and The Terror (1917), it includes his best stories as well as two self-contained sections of his story cycle The Three Impostors: Or, The Trans-mutations (1895). Although the works it contains were written over a period of more than forty years, and although their emphases vary, their central concerns are consistent.
Machen’s fiction suggests the existence of a universe lying beyond everyday reality, a spiritual realm sometimes horrible and occasionally beautiful. In his critical work Hieroglyphics (1902), Machen wrote that literature should convey the experience of “ecstasy,” a state he associated with the perception of this realm. His first important work, The Great God Pan, gives the process a literal twist: A doctor performs brain surgery, allowing his patient to see “the Great God Pan.” The doctor’s young female patient eventually dies of horror, but not before giving birth to a beautiful daughter who is the offspring of this same terrible deity.
A number of Machen’s stories posit the survival of a prehistoric race of Little People who either embody or control access to the spiritual realm. “The Novel of the Black Seal” (a novel in name only, taken from The Three Impostors), “The Shining Pyramid” (1895), and “The White People” (1904) reflect this belief. “The Novel of the Black Seal” (often reprinted as simply “The Black Seal”) recounts the adventures of an ethnologist who disappears while searching underground for the Little People. In “The Shining Pyramid” these misshapen creatures (here called Other People) perform a human sacrifice.
“The White People” carries Machen’s investigation of this prehistoric realm one step further. The greater part of the story is taken up with a narrative titled “The Green Book” and is a first-person account of an adolescent girl’s initiation into the supernatural. The account is written in dreamlike run-on sentences that brilliantly convey the girl’s excitement and dread as she apprehends the satanic world her nurse has revealed to her. The framework story supporting “The Green Book” explains that the girl finally poisons herself rather than continue her initiation. In the terms of Machen’s earlier story, she has managed to turn her eyes away from the Great God Pan. Many critics have judged “The White People” to be the best supernatural story ever written.
Several of Machen’s works treat World War I from unexpected viewpoints. In “The Bowmen” (1914) he created a piece of modern folklore by seeming to report that phantom bowmen from Great Britain’s past had appeared at the recent Battle of Mons. The short mystery novel The Terror suggests that the animal world has revolted in the face of human abdication of moral responsibility during the war.
Stories such as “The Great Return” (1915) lie at the opposite pole from Machen’s stories of horror. Here Machen celebrates the reappearance of the Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and hence the central symbol of a compelling set of beliefs and legends.
A much later story, and the last important one Machen wrote, is “N” (1936). In it Machen summed up his techniques and themes. The story’s title is apparently a reference to a neighborhood in the north of London, Canon’s Park, where a few lucky individuals perceive an earthly paradise. Introduced by a conversation about “old days and old ways” in the British capital, the story casts a backward glance down the same streets where Machen had found horror and fear four decades before.