ARTHUR MACHEN
After the Hoppe photograph
ARTHUR
MACHEN
Weaver of Fantasy
William Francis Gekle
Millbrook, N. Y.
Round Table Press
1949
Copyright, 1949, by
William Francis Gekle
All rights reserved. No part of this book maybe reproduced in any form, except by a reviewer, without the permission ofthe author.
Round Table Press
MILLBROOK, N. Y.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
for
Verne
PREFACE
It was, I suppose, during the closing months of the FirstWorld War that an urbane and witty gentleman, writing inthe Confederate city of Richmond, set down these words inthe course of one of his interminable, and witty and urbane,monologues: “I wonder if you are familiar with that uncannygenius whom the London directory prosaically lists asArthur Machen?”
Since there was no reply, as indeed none was expected,the amiable Charteris chatted on about Arthur Machen and,oddly enough, Robert W. Chambers, for some moments, andthen he concluded with this statement.... “But here in asecluded library is no place to speak of the thirty years’ neglectthat has been accorded Mr. Arthur Machen; it is thesort of crime that ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner,from the house-top....”
That thirty years’ neglect has almost doubled—and indeedone might say with perfect truth that Arthur Machenhas suffered a lifetime of neglect, and, in perfect truth, itmust be added that the loss has been the world’s which soblindly accorded neglect to the uncanny genius of ArthurMachen.
This is the sort of crime, as Mr. James Branch Cabellsuggested back in 1918, that ought to be discussed in theBiblical manner—and it is my intention to do so.
At this point there will be voices raised in protest ...dim voices trained to the librarian’s whisper, voices that echoin the vaults of university libraries and in the reading roomsof Memorial Collections. There will be other voices—theamiable, all-inclusive voice of the anthologist and the raspingroar of the reprint editor. There will be the excited exclamationsof the cultists and the happy burblings of the bibliographersas they pounce upon another Machen item. Andof course we may expect to hear the calm and cultured tonesof the collectors, the excavators and the discoverers, who havepointed with smug satisfaction to their rows of faded bindingsand their “obscure little pamphlets.” As for the horrorboys, happy with their harpies and hieroglyphs and wild hallucinations,they will probably croak and sibilate in unholyglee and rush down to start their presses—reprinting madlyall they can find of the magical tales of that wonderfulWelshman, Arthur Machen.
It will appear that I anticipate a renewed interest in theworks of Arthur Machen. I do. It may even become apparentthat I expect the publ